CONTEMPORARY 


THOMAS 

WENTWORTH 

HIGGINSON 


LIBRARY 

OF    THE 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA. 


WORKS.    Newly  arranged.   7  vols.  i2mo,  each,  $2.00. 

1.  CHEERFUL  YESTERDAYS. 

2.  CONTEMPORARIES. 

3.  ARMY  LIFE  IN  A  BLACK  REGIMENT. 

4.  WOMEN  AND  THE  ALPHABET. 

5.  STUDIES  IN  ROMANCE. 

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THE  WRITINGS   OF 
THOMAS   WENTWORTH    HIGGINSON 

VOLUME   II 


CONTEMPORARIES 


BY 
THOMAS   WENTWORTH    HIGGINSON 


BOSTON   AND   NEW  YORK 

HOUGHTON,   MIFFLIN  AND   COMPANY 

(Cbe  fitocrrfibe  $r«tf$,  Cambridge 

MDCCCC 


COPYRIGHT,   1899,   BY   THOMAS   WENTWORTH    HIGGINSON 
ALL   RIGHTS   RESERVED 


NOTE 

MOST  of  the  sketches  included  in  this  volume 
have  appeared  at  different  times,  and  often  un 
signed,  either  in  the  "  Atlantic  Monthly  "  or  in 
the  New  York  "  Nation,"  the  rest  having  been 
printed  respectively  in  the  "  Century  Magazine," 
the  "  Chautauquan,"  and  the  "  Independent," 
in  the  "  Correspondence  "  of  Dr.  T.  W.  Harris, 
in  Redpath's  "Life  of  Captain  John  Brown," 
and  in  "Eminent  Women  of  the  Age."  They 
are  now  brought  together  and  reprinted,  partly 
from  the  natural  instinct  of  preserving  one's 
own  work,  and  partly  because  a  group  of  such 
personal  delineations  has  some  increase  of  value 
when  recognized  as  proceeding  from  one  mind, 
and  thus  expressing  the  same  general  point  of 
view.  These  papers  have  all  received  such 
revision  as  was  made  necessary  by  the  develop 
ment  of  new  facts  or  by  the  reconsideration  of 
opinions  ;  the  only  exception  to  this  being  in  the 
case  of  one  paper  of  a  strictly  narrative  nature, 
which  it  was  thought  best  to  leave  untouched, 
as  the  only  mode  of  preserving  the  precise  at 
mosphere  of  the  thrilling  period  when  it  was 
originally  written. 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

RALPH  WALDO   EMERSON I 

AMOS   BRONSON   ALCOTT 23 

THEODORE    PARKER            34 

JOHN    GREENLEAF   WHITTIER 60 

WALT   WHITMAN 72 

SIDNEY    LANIER 85 

AN    EVENING   WITH   MRS.   HAWTHORNE            .          .          .  IO2 

LYDIA    MARIA   CHILD IO8 

HELEN    JACKSON    ("  H.  H.") 142 

JOHN    HOLMES l68 

THADDEUS    WILLIAM    HARRIS IQ2 

A  VISIT  TO  JOHN   BROWN'S   HOUSEHOLD   IN    1859      .  2IQ 

WILLIAM   LLOYD   GARRISON 244 

WENDELL   PHILLIPS 257 

CHARLES   SUMNER 280 

DR.   HOWE'S  ANTI-SLAVERY  CAREER  ....  2Q4 

ULYSSES   SIMPSON   GRANT 3<32 

THE  ECCENTRICITIES   OF  REFORMERS           .          .          .  329 

THE   ROAD  TO   ENGLAND 349 

INDEX 375 


(    UNI 


CONTEMPORARIES 


RALPH   WALDO   EMERSON 

RALPH  WALDO  EMERSON  was  born  in  Bos 
ton,  Mass.,  May  25,  1803,  being  the  son  of  the 
Rev.  William  Emerson  and  Ruth  (Raskins) 
Emerson.  The  Rev.  William  Emerson  was  one 
of  the  most  eminent  of  the  Boston  clergy  of 
his  day;  and  his  father,  also  named  William, 
was  the  minister  of  Concord  at  the  time  of  the 
"  Concord  fight,"  and  had  on  the  Sunday  pre 
vious  preached  from  the  text,  "Resistance  to 
tyrants  is  obedience  to  God."  On  the  mother's 
side,  as  well  as  on  the  father's,  Ralph  Waldo 
Emerson  came  not  merely  of  unmixed  New 
England  blood,  but  of  an  emphatically  clerical 
stock.  He  had  had  a  minister  among  his  an 
cestors  in  every  generation  for  eight  genera 
tions  back,  on  the  one  side  or  the  other.  Like 
his  friend  and  teacher,  William  Ellery  Chan- 
ning,  he  was  reared  under  the  especial  and 
controlling  influence  of  strong  women,  for  his 
father  died  when  he  was  but  eight  years  old,  so 


2  CONTEMPORARIES 

that  his  mother  and  his  aunt,  Miss  Mary  Emer 
son,  were  the  guiding  influences  of  his  early 
life.  The  Rev.  Dr.  Frothingham  once  wrote 
of  Mrs.  Emerson,  the  elder :  "  Both  her  mind 
and  character  were  of  a  superior  order,  and 
they  set  their  stamp  upon  manners  of  peculiar 
softness  and  natural  grace  and  quiet  dignity." 
Mrs.  Ripley  wrote  of  Miss  Mary  Emerson, 
"  Her  power  over  the  minds  of  her  young 
friends  was  almost  despotic ; "  and  her  eminent 
nephew  said  of  her  that  her  influence  upon  him 
was  as  great  as  that  of  Greece  or  Rome.  The 
household  atmosphere  was  one  of  "  plain  living 
and  high  thinking,"  and  Mr.  Emerson  used  to 
relate,  according  to  Mr.  Cooke,  that  he  had 
once  gone  without  the  second  volume  of  a  book 
because  his  aunt  had  convinced  him  that  his 
mother  could  not  afford  to  pay  six  cents  for  it 
at  the  circulating  library.  He  was  fitted  for 
Harvard  College  at  the  public  schools  of  Bos 
ton,  and  when  he  entered,  at  the  age  of  four 
teen,  in  1817,  he  became  "President's  fresh 
man,"  as  the  position  was  then  called,  doing 
official  errands  for  compensation.  He  was  then 
described  as  being  "a  slender,  delicate  youth, 
younger  than  most  of  his  classmates,  and  of  a 
sensitive,  retiring  nature." 

All  his  college  career  showed  the  conscien 
tiousness  which  was  to  control  his  life,  and  also 


RALPH    WALDO   EMERSON  3 

his  strong  literary  tendency.  In  his  junior  year 
he  won  a  "  Bowdoin  prize "  for  an  essay  on 
"The  Character  of  Socrates,"  and  again  in  his 
senior  year  a  second  prize  for  a  dissertation  on 
"The  Present  State  of  Ethical  Philosophy," 
these  two  being  the  only  opportunities  then 
afforded  by  the  college  for  such  competition. 
He  also  won  a  "  Boylston  prize  "  for  declama 
tion,  was  Class  Poet,  and  had  a  "part "  at  Com 
mencement  in  a  conference  on  the  character 
of  John  Knox.  Josiah  Quincy,  of  Boston,  a 
member  of  the  same  class,  remarked  in  his  col 
lege  diary,  as  quoted  by  himself  in  the  "  New 
York  Independent,"  that  Emerson's  disserta 
tion  on  ethics  was  "  dull  and  dry."  As  he  him 
self  had  won  the  first  prize,  his  criticism  could 
have  afforded,  it  would  seem,  to  be  generous  ; 
but  as  he  also  regarded  Emerson's  Class  Day 
poem  as  "rather  poor,"  it  is  necessary  to  re 
member  that  there  is  no  known  criticism  quite 
so  merciless  as  that  of  college  boys  on  one 
another.  At  any  rate  it  was  with  these  creden 
tials  that  Emerson  went  forth  to  the  world  in 
1821 ;  and  as  his  destiny  was  to  be  literature, 
we  must  pause  for  a  moment  to  consider  what 
then  was  the  condition  of  this  nation  in  that 
regard. 

We  must  remember  that  it  was  only  the  po 
litical  life  of  America  which  came  into  being 


4  CONTEMPORARIES 

in  1776  :  its  literary  life  was  not  yet  born  ;  and 
though  Horace  Walpole  had  written  two  years 
earlier  that  there  would  one  day  be  a  Thucydi- 
des  in  Boston  and  a  Xenophon  in  New  York, 
nobody  on  this  side  of  the  Atlantic  believed  it, 
or  even  stopped  to  think  about  it.  The  Gov 
ernment  was  born  with  such  travail,  and  this 
was  prolonged  for  so  many  years,  that  the 
thoughts  of  public  men  went  little  farther. 
Fisher  Ames  wrote  about  1807  an  essay  on 
"American  Literature"  to  prove  that  there 
would  never  be  any  such  thing.  He  said  :  — 

"  Except  the  authors  of  two  able  works  on 
our  politics  we  have  no  authors.  Shall  we 
match  Joel  Barlow  against  Homer  or  Hesiod  ? 
Can  Thomas  Paine  contend  against  Plato  ? " 1 
He  then  shows  how  in  each  department  of  liter 
ature  America  is  probably  foredoomed  to  fail, 
and  closes  with  the  hopeful  suggestion  that, 
when  liberty  shall  yield  to  despotism,  literature 
and  luxury  may  arrive  together. 

It  is  well  known  that  John  Adams,  a  few 
years  later,  took  a  somewhat  similar  view  of 
affairs.  He  wrote  in  1819  to  a  French  artist 
who  wished  to  make  a  bust  of  him  :  — 

"  The  age  of  sculpture  and  painting  has  not 
yet  arrived  in  this  country,  and  I  hope  it  will 
not  arrive  very  soon.  I  would  not  give  six- 
1  Works  of  Fisher  Ames,  pp.  460,  461. 


RALPH   WALDO   EMERSON  5 

pence  for  a  picture  of  Raphael  or  a  statue  of 
Phidias." 

When  we  wonder  at  the  political  ability  of 
that  day,  we  must  remember  that  men  concen 
trated  absolutely  everything  upon  it ;  they  could 
not  give  even  a  thought  to  creating  a  cultivated 
nation ;  the  thing  that  amazes  us  is  that  they 
should  have  created  a  nation  at  all. 

Two  years  after  John  Adams  had  made  the 
above  remark  about  painting,  and  only  four 
teen  years  after  Fisher  Ames  had  written  thus 
hopelessly  of  American  literature,  Emerson  was 
graduated  at  Harvard.  It  is  to  be  noted  of 
him  that  he  was  the  very  first  of  that  long  line 
of  well-known  authors  who  received  their  first 
literary  criticism  from  Professor  Edward  Tyrrel 
Channing.  Up  to  that  time  there  had  been  no 
such  thing  as  a  professional  author  in  America, 
except  Brockden  Brown,  who  died  in  1810. 
Channing  was  a  clergyman ;  Bryant  was  a  law 
yer  ;  Cooper  was  not  yet  known,  his  novel  of 
"Precaution"  having  been  published  anony 
mously  ;  Bancroft  was  still  in  Germany,  and 
Irving  in  England.  The  "  North  American 
Review"  had  been  six  years  established,  but 
still  reached  only  a  small  circle.  Sydney  Smith 
had  lately  written  (in  1818) :  "There  does  not 
seem  to  be  in  America,  at  this  moment,  one 
man  of  any  considerable  talents."  Such  was 


6  CONTEMPORARIES 

the  condition  of  affairs  when  Emerson  took  his 
diploma  and  went  forth  as  Bachelor  of  Arts. 

For  five  years  after  leaving  college  he  was  an 
assistant  teacher  in  a  school  for  girls,  taught  by 
his  elder  brother,  William.  In  1823  he  began 
to  study  for  the  ministry,  the  accumulated  tra 
ditions  of  his  ancestry  being  quite  too  strong 
for  him.  He  did  not  join  the  Harvard  Divinity 
School,  then  newly  established,  but  he  was  duly 
"appointed  to  preach"  in  1826.  His  health 
was  delicate,  and  he  took  a  trip  southward  for 
small  parishes  under  temporary  engagements. 
He  evidently  felt  at  this  time  a  premonition  of 
that  longing  for  studious  retirement  to  which 
he  afterward  yielded  ;  for  the  graceful  verses, 

"  Good-by,  proud  world,  I  'm  going  home," 

belong  to  this  period  of  his  life  and  not  to  the 
later  time.  On  March  n,  1829,  he  was  or 
dained  as  colleague  to  the  Rev.  Henry  Ware, 
Jr.,  of  the  Second  Unitarian  Society  in  Boston. 
Here  he  remained  for  three  years,  faithfully 
discharging  his  professional  duties,  and  indeed 
construing  them  with  a  liberality  beyond  most 
of  his  profession,  inasmuch  as  he  twice  opened 
his  pulpit  for  anti-slavery  addresses.  The  Rev. 
Mr.  Ware  was  absent  in  Europe  during  a  large 
part  of  Mr.  Emerson's  term  of  service,  and  re 
turned  only  to  resign  his  post  from  ill-health, 


RALPH   WALDO   EMERSON  7 

saying  to  the  people  in  regard  to  his  young 
colleague :  "  Providence  presented  to  you  at 
once  a  man  on  whom  your  hearts  could  rest." 

Emerson's  preaching  seems  to  have  prefig 
ured  his  later  lecturing  in  earnestness  and  sin 
cerity,  and  it  had  the  same  ideal  aspect ;  he 
spoke  of  himself  once  as  "killing  the  utility 
swine"  in  a  sermon  on  ethics.  He  had  some 
duties  outside  his  own  pulpit,  was  Chaplain  of 
the  State  Senate,  and  member  of  the  City 
School  Committee.  He  seems  to  have  liked 
his  work,  but  was  compelled  by  his  conscience 
to  preach  a  sermon  (September  9,  1832)  against 
the  further  observance  of  the  so-called  "  Lord's 
Supper."  This  sermon  was  not  printed  at  the 
time,  but  may  be  found  in  Frothingham's  "  His 
tory  of  Transcendentalism."  It  does  not  seem 
very  aggressive  when  tried  beside  the  more 
trenchant  heresies  of  to-day,  but  it  sufficed  to 
separate  him  from  his  parish.  Yet  it  is  evi 
dent  that  the  separation  was  without  bitterness, 
inasmuch  as  he  furnished  for  the  ordination  of 
his  successor,  the  Rev.  Chandler  Robbins,  dur 
ing  the  next  year,  the  fine  hymn  beginning  — 

"  We  love  the  venerable  house 
Our  fathers  built  to  God." 

During  this  pastorate  he  was  married  (in 
September,  1829)  to  Ellen  Louise  Tucker,  to 
whom  he  addressed  the  lines  entitled  "To 


8  CONTEMPORARIES 

Ellen  at  the  South."  She  died  of  consumption 
in  February,  1832,  and  at  the  end  of  that  year 
he  sailed  for  Europe,  being  gone  nearly  a  year. 
It  was  during  this  visit  that  he  made  the  ac 
quaintance  of  Landor  and  Wordsworth,  as  de 
scribed  in  "  English  Traits,"  and  he  also  went 
to  Craigenputtock  to  see  Carlyle,  who  long 
afterward  described  his  visit  (in  conversation 
with  Longfellow),  as  being  "like  the  visit  of 
an  angel."  Then  began  that  friendship  which 
lasted  for  a  lifetime,  and  which  had  such  a  hold 
upon  the  high-minded  Carlyle,  that  he  scarcely 
seemed  a  cynic  when  the  name  of  Emerson 
was  uttered. 

After  his  return  to  Boston  Mr.  Emerson 
preached  a  few  times  —  once  in  his  old  pulpit 
—  and  declined  a  call  from  the  large  Unitarian 
Society  in  New  Bedford.  He  gave  public  lec 
tures  on  "Italy,"  on  "Water,"  and  on  "The 
Relation  of  Man  to  the  Globe."  In  1834  he 
gave  in  Boston  a  series  of  biographical  lectures 
on  Michael  Angelo,  Milton,  Luther,  George 
Fox,  and  Edmund  Burke,  —  a  different  pan 
theon,  it  will  be  observed,  from  his  later  "  Re- 
presentative  Men."  It  is  well  remembered  that 
there  was  even  at  that  time  a  charm  in  his  man 
ner  which  arrested  the  attention  of  very  young 
people ;  and  from  that  time  forward,  for  half  a 
century,  he  was  one  of  the  leading  lecturers  of 


RALPH   WALDO   EMERSON  9 

America.  He  lectured  in  forty  successive  sea 
sons  before  a  single  "lyceum  "  — that  of  Salem, 
Mass.  His  fine  delivery  unquestionably  did  a 
great  deal  for  the  dissemination  of  his  thought. 
After  once  hearing  him,  that  sonorous  oratory 
seemed  to  roll  through  every  sentence  that  the 
student  read ;  and  his  very  peculiarities,  —  the 
occasional  pause  accompanied  with  a  deep  gaze 
of  the  eyes,  or  the  apparent  hesitation  in  the 
selection  of  a  word,  always  preparing  the  way, 
like  Charles  Lamb's  stammer,  for  some  stroke 
of  mother -wit,  —  these  identified  themselves 
with  his  personality,  and  secured  his  hold.  He 
always  shrank  from  extemporaneous  speech, 
though  sometimes  most  effective  in  its  use  ;  he 
wrote  of  himself  once  as  "  the  worst  known  pub 
lic  speaker,  and  growing  continually  worse ;  " 
but  his  most  studied  remarks  had  the  effect  of 
off-hand  conviction  from  the  weight  and  beauty 
of  his  elocution. 

From  the  time,  however,  when  he  retired  to 
his  father's  birthplace,  Concord  (in  1834),  and 
published  his  first  thin  volume,  entitled  "  Na 
ture,"  it  became  plain  that  it  was  through  the 
press  that  his  chief  work  was  to  be  done.  It  is 
sometimes  doubtful  how  far  one  who  initiates 
a  fresh  impulse,  whether  in  literature  or  life, 
does  it  with  full  and  conscious  purpose.  There 
can  be  no  such  doubt  in  the  case  of  Emerson. 


io  CONTEMPORARIES 

From  the  beginning  to  the  end  of  this  first  vol 
ume,  the  fact  is  clear  that  it  was  consciously 
and  deliberately  a  new  departure.  Those  ninety 
brief  pages  were  an  undisguised  challenge  to 
the  world.  On  the  very  first  page  the  author 
complains  that  our  age  is  retrospective,  —  that 
others  have  "  beheld  God  and  nature  face  to 
face ;  we  only  through  their  eyes.  Why  should 
not  we,"  he  says,  "also  enjoy  an  original  rela 
tion  to  the  universe  ?  Why  should  not  we  have 
a  poetry  and  philosophy  of  insight  and  not  of 
tradition  ?"  Thus  the  book  begins,  and  on  the 
very  last  page  it  ends,  "  Build,  therefore,  your 
own  world  !  " 

At  any  time,  and  under  any  conditions,  the 
first  reading  of  such  words  by  any  young  per 
son  would  be  a  great  event  in  life,  but  in  the 
comparative  conventionalism  of  the  literature 
of  that  period  it  had  the  effect  of  a  revelation. 
It  was  soon  followed  by  other  similar  appeals. 
On  the  very  first  page  of  the  first  number  of 
the  "Dial"  (July,  1840)  the  editors  speak  of 
"the  strong  current  of  thought  and  feeling 
which  for  a  few  years  past  has  led  many  sin 
cere  persons  in  New  England  to  make  new 
demands  on  literature,  and  to  repudiate  that 
rigor  of  our  conventions  of  religion  and  educa 
tion  which  is  turning  us  to  stone." 

Emerson's   "Thoughts  on   Modern   Litera- 


RALPH   WALDO   EMERSON  u 

ture,"  contained  in  the  second  number  of  the 
"Dial"  (October,  1840),  struck  the  keynote  of 
a  wholly  new  demand.  In  this  he  has  a  frank 
criticism  of  Goethe,  whom  he  boldly  arraigns 
for  not  rising  above  the  sphere  of  the  conven 
tional,  and  for  not  giving  us  a  new  heaven  and 
a  new  earth.  Goethe,  he  says,  tamely  takes 
life  as  it  is,  "  accepts  the  base  doctrine  of  Fate, 
and  gleans  what  straggling  joys  may  yet  re 
main  out  of  its  ban." 

"He  was  content  to  fall  into  the  track  of 
vulgar  poets,  and  spend  on  common  aims  his 
splendid  endowments,  and  has  declined  the 
office  proffered  now  and  then  to  a  man  in  many 
centuries,  in  the  power  of  his  genius  —  of  a 
Redeemer  of  the  human  mind.  .  .  .  Let  him 
pass.  Humanity  must  wait  for  its  physician 
still,  at  the  side  of  the  road,  and  confess  as  this 
man  goes  out  that  they  have  served  it  better 
who  assured  it  out  of  the  innocent  hope  in 
their  hearts  that  a  Physician  will  come,  than 
this  majestic  Artist,  with  all  the  treasures  of 
wit,  of  science,  and  of  power  at  his  command." 
Again,  Emerson  says  in  the  same  paper :  — 
"  He  who  doubts  whether  this  age  or  this 
country  can  yield  any  contribution  to  the  litera 
ture  of  the  world  only  betrays  his  blindness 
to  the  necessities  of  the  human  soul.  .  .  . 
What  shall  hinder  the  Genius  of  the  Time 


12  CONTEMPORARIES 

from  speaking  its  thought  ?  It  cannot  be  silent 
if  it  would.  It  will  write  in  a  higher  spirit,  and 
a  wider  knowledge,  and  with  a  grander  practi 
cal  aim,  than  ever  yet  guided  the  pen  of  poet  ; 
.  .  .  and  that  which  was  ecstasy  shall  become 
daily  bread." 

It  was  the  direct  result  of  words  like  these  to 
arouse  what  is  the  first  great  need  in  a  new 
literature — self-reliance.  The  impulse  in  this 
direction,  given  during  the  so-called  Transcen 
dental  period  was  responsible  for  many  of  the 
excesses  of  that  time,  but  it  was  the  only  way 
to  make  strong  men  and  women.  The  "  Dial  " 
itself  revealed  liberally  some  of  the  follies  of 
the  movement  it  represented,  but  nothing  can 
ever  deprive  it  of  its  significance  as  offering  the 
first  distinctly  American  movement  in  litera 
ture.  And  while  it  is  difficult,  in  this  period  of 
perhaps  temporary  reaction  against  the  ideal 
school  of  thought,  to  fix  Emerson's  permanent 
standing  among  thinkers,  his  influence  as  a 
stimulus  was  quite  unequaled  during  the  era 
when  our  original  literature  was  taking  form. 

In  1835  Mr.  Emerson  was  married  for  the 
second  time,  his  wife  being  Miss  Lidian  Jack 
son,  daughter  of  Charles  Jackson,  of  Plymouth, 
and  sister  of  Dr.  Charles  T.  Jackson,  well 
known  in  connection  with  the  discovery  of 
anaesthetics.  He  then  went  to  reside  in  the 


RALPH   WALDO   EMERSON  13 

house  which  was  thenceforth  his  home,  and  was 
for  many  years,  as  Lord  Clarendon  said  of  the 
house  of  Lord  Falkland,  "  a  college  situated  in 
purer  air"  and  "a  university  in  less  volume" 
to  the  many  strangers  who  came  thither.  In 
this  house  his  children  were  born,  and  here  his 
devoted  mother  resided  with  him  until  she  died. 
From  this  time  forth,  too,  he  identified  himself 
with  all  the  local  affairs  of  Concord,  writing  a 
hymn  for  the  dedication  of  the  Revolutionary 
Monument,  giving  an  historical  address,  and 
recognized  by  all  as  the  chief  pride  and  orna 
ment  of  that  little  town  —  as  sturdy  and  cour 
ageous  in  its  individuality  as  any  free  city  of 
the  later  Middle  Ages. 

His  books  appeared  in  steady  succession,  the 
material  having  been  often,  though  not  always, 
used  previously  in  lectures.  The  two  volumes 
of  "Essays"  appeared  in  1841  and  1844,  the 
"Poems"  in  1846,  "Representative  Men"  in 
1850,  the  "Life  of  Margaret  Fuller  Ossoli " 
(of  which  he  was  part  editor)  in  1852,  "English 
Traits"  in  1856,  "The  Conduct  of  Life"  in 
i860,  "May-Day  and  Other  Poems,"  with  "So 
ciety  and  Solitude,"  in  1869.  This  list  does 
not  include  the  various  addresses  and  ora 
tions  which  were  published  in  separate  pam 
phlets,  and  remained  uncollected  in  America 
until  1849,  though  reprinted  in  a  cheap  form  in 


14  CONTEMPORARIES 

England  in  1844.  Some  of  these  special  ad 
dresses  attracted  quite  as  much  attention  as 
any  of  his  books  —  this  being  especially  true 
of  those  entitled  "The  Method  of  Nature," 
"  Man  Thinking,"  "  Literary  Ethics,"  and  above 
all,  the  "Address  before  the  Senior  Class  at 
Divinity  College,  Cambridge,"  delivered  July  15, 
1838.  It  would  be  difficult  to  exaggerate  the 
hold  taken  by  these  addresses  upon  the  young 
people  who  read  them,  or  the  extent  to  which 
their  pithy  and  heroic  maxims  became  a  part 
of  the  very  fibre  of  manhood  to  the  genera 
tion  then  entering  upon  the  stage  of  life.  The 
perfect  personal  dignity  of  the  leader,  his  ele 
vation  of  ^thought,  his  freedom  from  all  petty 
antagonisms,  his  courage  in  all  practical  tests 
enhanced  this  noble  influence.  Pure  idealist  as 
he  was,  he  went  through  the  difficult  ordeal 
of  the  anti-slavery  excitement  without  a  stain, 
and  more  than  once  endured  the  novel  experi 
ence  of  hisses  and  interruptions  with  his  philo 
sophic  bearing  undisturbed,  and  seeming,  in 
deed,  to  find  only  new  material  for  thought  in 
this  unwonted  aspect  of  life.  He  also  identi 
fied  himself  with  certain  other  reforms  :  signed 
the  call  for  the  first  National  Woman's  Suffrage 
Convention,  in  1850,  and  was  one  of  the  speak 
ers  at  the  first  meeting  of  the  Free  Religious 
Association,  of  which  he  was  ever  after  a  Vice- 


RALPH   WALDO   EMERSON  15 

President.  It  is  needless  to  say  that  he  was  in 
warm  sympathy  with  the  national  cause  during 
the  war  for  the  Union ;  and  he  was  a  Republi 
can  in  politics. 

Mr.  Emerson's  fame  extended  far  beyond  his 
native  land ;  and  it  is  probable  that  no  writer 
of  the  English  tongue  had  more  influence  in 
England,  thirty  years  ago,  before  the  all- 
absorbing  interest  of  the  new  theories  of  evo 
lution  threw  all  the  so-called  transcendental 
philosophy  into  temporary  shade.  When  we 
consider,  for  instance,  his  marked  influence  on 
three  men  so  utterly  unlike  one  another  as 
Carlyle,  Tyndall,  and  Matthew  Arnold,  the 
truth  of  this  remark  can  hardly  be  disputed. 
On  the  continent  his  most  ardent  admirers  and 
commentators  were  Edgar  Quinet  in  France, 
and  Herman  Grimm  in  Germany. 

It  will  be  remembered  by  many  that  during 
Kossuth's  very  remarkable  tour  in  this  country 

-when  he  adapted  himself  to  the  local  tradi 
tions  and  records  of  every  village  as  if  he  had 
just  been  editing  for  publication  its  local  annals 

-  he  had  the  tact  to  identify  Emerson,  in  his 
fine  way,  with  Concord,  and  said  in  his  speech 
there,  turning  to  him,  "  You,  sir,  are  a  philoso 
pher.  Lend  me,  I  pray  you,  the  aid  of  your 
philosophical  analysis,"  etc.,  etc.  He  addressed 
him,  in  short,  as  if  he  had  been  Kant  or  Hegel. 


16  CONTEMPORARIES 

But  in  reality  nothing  could  be  remoter  from 
Emerson  than  such  a  philosophic  type  as  this.  He 
was  only  a  philosopher  in  the  vaguer  ancient 
sense  ;  his  mission  was  to  sit,  like  Socrates, 
beneath  the  plane-trees,  and  offer  profound  and 
beautiful  aphorisms,  without  even  the  vague 
thread  of  the  Socratic  method  to  tie  them  to 
gether.  Once,  and  once  only,  in  his  life,  he 
seemed  to  be  approaching  the  attitude  of  sys 
tematic  statement  — this  being  in  his  course  of 
lectures  on  "  The  Natural  Method  of  Intellec^ 
tual  Philosophy,"  given  in  1868  or  thereabouts  ; 
the  fundamental  proposition  of  these  lectures 
being  that  "every  law  of  nature  is  a  law  of 
mind,"  and  all  material  laws  are  symbolical 
statements.  These  few  lectures  certainly  in 
spired  his  admirers  with  the  belief  that  their 
great  poetic  seer  might  commend  himself  to  the 
systematizers  also.  But  for  some  reason,  even 
these  lectures  were  not  published  till  after 
Emerson's  death,  and  his  latest  books  had  the 
same  detached  and  fragmentary  character  as 
his  earliest.  He  remained  still  among  the  poets, 
not  among  the  philosophic  doctors,  and  must  be 
permanently  classified  in  that  manner. 

Yet  it  may  be  fearlessly  said  that,  within  the 
limits  of  a  single  sentence,  no  man  who  ever 
wrote  the  English  tongue  has  put  more  mean 
ing  into  words  than  Emerson.  In  his  hands,  to 


RALPH    WALDO    EMERSON  17 

adopt  Ben  Jonson's  phrase,  words  "  are  rammed 
with  thought."  No  one  has  reverenced  the 
divine  art  of  speech  more  than  Emerson,  or 
practiced  it  more  nobly.  "The  Greeks,"  he 
once  said  in  an  unpublished  lecture,  "  antici 
pated  by  their  very  language  what  the  best 
orator  could  say ; "  and  neither  Greek  precision 
nor  Roman  vigor  could  produce  a  phrase  that 
Emerson  could  not  match.  Who  stands  in  all 
literature  as  the  master  of  condensation  if  not 
Tacitus  ?  Yet  Emerson,  in  his  speech  at  the 
anti-Kansas  meeting  in  Cambridge,  quoted  that 
celebrated  remark  by  Tacitus  where  he  mentions 
that  the  effigies  of  Brutus  and  Cassius  were  not 
carried  at  a  certain  state  funeral ;  and  in  trans 
lating  it,  bettered  the  original.  The  indignant 
phrase  of  Tacitus  is,  "  Praefulgebant  .  .  .  eo 
ipso  quod  .  .  .  non  visebantur,"  thus  giving 
a  grand  moral  lesson  in  six  words  ;  but  Emer 
son  gives  it  in  five,  and  translates  it,  even 
more  powerfully :  "  They  glared  through  their 
absences."  Look  through  all  Emerson's  writ 
ings,  and  then  consider  whether  in  all  literature 
you  can  find  a  man  who  has  better  fulfilled  that 
aspiration  stated  in  such  condensed  words  by 
Joubert,  "  to  put  a  whole  book  into  a  page,  a 
whole  page  into  a  phrase,  and  that  phrase  into  a 
word."  After  all,  it  is  phrases  and  words  won 
like  this  which  give  immortality.  And  if  you 


i8  CONTEMPORARIES 

say  that,  nevertheless,  this  is  nothing,  so  long 
as  an  author  has  not  given  us  a  system  of  the 
universe,  it  can  only  be  said  that  Emerson  never 
desired  to  do  this,  but  left  on  record  the  opinion 
that  "  it  is  too  young  by  some  ages  yet  to  form 
a  creed."  The  system-makers  have  their  place, 
no  doubt ;  but  when  we  consider  how  many 
of  them  have  risen  and  fallen  since  Emerson 
began  to  write,  —  Coleridge,  Schelling,  Cousin, 
Comte,  Mill,  down  to  the  Hegel  of  yesterday 
and  the  Spencer  of  to-day,  —  it  is  really  evi 
dent  that  the  absence  of  a  system  cannot  prove 
much  more  short-lived  than  the  possession  of 
that  commodity. 

It  must  be  left  for  future  generations  to  de 
termine  Emerson's  precise  position  even  as  a 
poet.  There  is  seen  in  him  the  tantalizing  com 
bination  of  the  profoundest  thoughts  with  the 
greatest  possible  variation  in  artistic  work,  — 
sometimes  mere  boldness  and  almost  wayward 
ness,  while  at  other  times  he  achieves  the  most 
exquisite  melody  touched  with  a  certain  wild 
grace.  He  has  been  likened  to  an  aeolian  harp, 
which  now  gives  and  then  perversely  withholds 
its  music.  Nothing  can  exceed  the  perfection 
of  the  lines  - 

"  Thou  canst  not  wave  thy  staff  in  air, 

Nor  dip  thy  paddle  in  the  lake, 
But  it  carves  the  bow  of  beauty  there, 

And  the  ripples  in  rhyme  the  oar  forsake." 


RALPH   WALDO   EMERSON  19 

Yet  within  the  compass  of  this  same  fine  poem 
("  Wood  -  Notes  ")  there  are  passages  which 
elicited  from  Theodore  Parker,  one  of  the  poet's 
most  ardent  admirers,  the  opinion  that  a  pine- 
tree  which  should  talk  as  Mr.  Emerson's  tree 
talks  would  deserve  to  be  plucked  up  and  cast 
into  the  sea.  His  poetic  reputation  was  dis 
tinctly  later  in  time  than  his  fame  as  an  essayist 
and  lecturer ;  and  Horace  Greeley  was  one  of 
the  first,  if  not  the  first,  to  claim  for  him  a  rank 
at  the  very  head  of  our  American  bards.  Like 
Wordsworth  and  Tennyson,  he  educated  the 
public  mind  to  himself.  The  same  verses  which 
were  received  with  shouts  of  laughter  when  they 
first  appeared  in  the  "  Dial "  were  treated  with  re 
spectful  attention  when  collected  into  a  volume, 
and  it  was  ultimately  discovered  that  they  were 
among  the  classic  poems  of  all  literature.  In 
part  this  was  due  to  the  fact  that  Emerson  actu 
ally  did  what  Margaret  Fuller  had  reproached 
Longfellow  for  not  doing,  —  he  took  his  allusions 
and  his  poetic  material  from  the  woods  and 
waters  around  him,  and  wrote  fearlessly  even  of 
the  humble-bee.  This  was  called  by  some  critics 
"a  foolish  affectation  of  the  familiar,"  but  it 
was  recognized  by  degrees  as  true  art.  There 
was  thus  a  gradual  change  in  the  public  mind, 
and  it  turned  out  that  in  the  poems  of  Emerson, 
not  less  than  in  his  prose,  the  birth  of  a  litera 
ture  was  in  progress. 


20  CONTEMPORARIES 

It  must,  on  the  other  hand,  be  remembered, 
in  justice  to  the  public  mind,  that  Emerson  dis 
armed  his  critics  by  some  revision  of  his  poems, 
so  that  they  appeared,  and  actually  were,  less 
crude  and  whimsical  when  transplanted  into  the 
volume.  In  the  very  case  just  mentioned,  the 
original  opening, 

"  Fine  humble-bee !  fine  humble-bee !  " 

had  a  flavor  of  affectation,  whereas  the  substi 
tuted  line, 

"  Burly,  dozing  humble-bee," 

added  two  very  effective  adjectives  to  the  origi 
nal  description.  Again,  in  the  pretty  verses 
about  the  maiden  and  the  acorn,  the  lines  as 
originally  published  stood  thus  : — 

"  Pluck  it  now  !     In  vain  —  thou  canst  not  1 

It  has  shot  its  rootlets  down'rd. 
Toy  no  longer,  it  has  duties  ; 
It  is  anchored  in  the  ground." 

There  probably  is  not  a  rougher  rhyme  in  Eng 
lish  verse  than  that  between  "down'rd"  and 
"ground;"  but,  after  revision,  this  softer  line 
was  substituted, 

"  Its  roots  have  pierced  yon  shady  mound," 

which,  if  less  vigorous,  at  least  propitiates  the 
ear.  It  is  evident  from  Emerson's  criticisms 
in  the  "Dial"  —as  that  on  Ellery  Channing's 
poems  —  that  he  had  a  horror  of  what  he  calls 


RALPH    WALDO   EMERSON  21 

"  French  correctness,"  and  could  more  easily 
pardon  what  was  rough  than  what  was  tame. 
When  it  came  to  passing  judgment  on  the  de 
tails  of  poetry,  he  was  sometimes  a  whimsical 
critic;  his  personal  favorites  were  apt  to  be 
swans.  He  undoubtedly  felt  some  recoil  from 
his  first  ardent  praise  of  Whitman,  for  instance, 
and  at  any  rate  was  wont  to  protest  against  his 
"  priapism,"  as  he  tersely  called  it.  On  the  other 
hand,  there  were  whole  classes  of  writers  whom 
he  scarcely  recognized  at  all.  This  was  true  of 
Shelley,  for  example,  about  whom  he  wrote: 
"  Though  uniformly  a  poetic  mind,  he  is  never 
a  poet."  His  estimate  of  prose  authors  seemed 
more  definite  and  trustworthy  than  in  the  case 
of  verse,  yet  he  probably  never  quite  appreciated 
Hawthorne,  and  certainly  discouraged  young 
people  from  reading  his  books. 

"  Of  all  writers,"  says  Sir  Philip  Sidney,  "the 
poet  is  the  least  liar ; "  and  we  might  almost 
say  that  of  all  poets  Emerson  is  the  most  direct 
and  unfaltering  in  his  search  for  truth.  To  this 
must  be  added,  as  his  highest  gift,  a  nature  so 
noble  and  so  calm  that  he  was  never  misled  for 
one  instant  by  temper,  by  antagonism,  by  con 
troversy.  The  spirit  in  which  he  received  and 
disarmed  the  criticisms  of  his  colleague,  Henry 
Ware,  on  the  publication  of  his  Divinity  Hall 
address,  was  the  spirit  of  his  whole  life ;  it  was 


22  CONTEMPORARIES 

"first  pure,  then  peaceable."  The  final  verdict 
of  posterity  upon  him  must  be  essentially  that 
epitaph  which  he  himself  placed  upon  the  grave 
of  the  friend  and  brother-poet  who  but  just  pre 
ceded  him.  On  his  return  from  Mr.  Longfel 
low's  funeral  he  said  to  a  friend,  —  with  that 
vague  oblivion  of  names  which  alone  beclouded 
his  closing  years,  —  "That  gentleman  whose 
funeral  we  have  been  attending  was  a  sweet  and 
beautiful  soul,  but  I  forget  his  name."  These 
high  words  of  praise  might  fitly  be  applied  to  the 
speaker  himself;  but  his  name  shows  no  signs 
of  being  forgotten.  He  died  at  Concord,  Mass., 
April  27,  1882. 


AMOS   BRONSON  ALCOTT 

AMOS  BRONSON  ALCOTT  was  born  at  Wol- 
cott,  Conn.,  November  29,  1799,  and  died  at 
Boston,  Mass.,  March  4,  1888. 

It  is  often  noticed,  when  the  tie  between  two 
lifelong  associates  is  broken  by  the  death  of 
one  of  them,  that  the  other  shows  the  effect  of 
the  shock  from  that  moment,  as  if  left  only 
half  alive  —  nee  superstes  integer.  So  close 
was  the  intercourse,  for  many  years,  between 
Mr.  Alcott  and  Mr.  Emerson  —  so  perfect  their 
mutual  love  and  reverence  —  so  constant  their 
cooperation  in  the  kind  of  work  they  did  and 
the  influence  they  exerted  —  that  it  was  diffi 
cult  to  conceive  of  Mr.  Alcott  as  living  long 
alone;  and  it  seemed  eminently  appropriate 
that  part  of  the  remaining  interval  of  his  life 
should  be  employed  in  delineating  his  friend's 
traits.  They  were  singularly  different  in  tem 
perament,  and  yet  singularly  united.  They 
were  alike  in  simplicity  and  integrity  of  nature, 
as  well  as  in  their  chosen  place  of  residence 
and  in  the  elevated  influence  they  exercised. 
In  all  other  respects  they  were  unlike.  Mr. 


24  CONTEMPORARIES 

Alcott  was  conspicuously  an  instance  of  what 
may  be  called  the  self  -  made  man  in  litera 
ture.  Without  early  advantages,  and  with  no 
family  traditions  of  culture,  he  took  his  place 
among  the  most  refined  though  not  among  the 
most  powerful  exponents  of  the  ideal  atti 
tude  ;  whereas  Mr.  Emerson  came  of  what  Dr. 
Holmes  called  Brahmin  blood,  had  behind  him 
a  line  of  educated  clergymen,  and  had  received 
the  best  that  could  be  given  in  the  way  of 
training  by  the  New  England  of  his  youth. 
Their  temperaments  were  in  many  ways  differ 
ent  :  Emerson  was  shy  and  reserved,  Alcott 
was  effusive  and  cordial ;  Emerson  repressed 
personal  adulation,  Alcott  expanded  under  it ; 
Emerson  found  in  literature  his  natural  func 
tion,  Alcott  came  to  it  with  such  difficulty  that 
Lowell  wrote  of  him, 

"  In  this,  as  in  all  things,  a  lamb  among  men, 
He  goes  to  sure  death  when  he  goes  to  his  pen." 

Emerson's  style  was  enriched  by  varied  know 
ledge,  his  use  of  which  made  one  always  wish 
for  more.  Alcott's  reading  lay  only  in  one  or 
two  directions,  and  his  use  of  it  was  sometimes 
fatiguing.  Emerson's  most  serious  poems  were 
prolonged  lyrics  ;  Alcott  could  put  no  lyric  line 
into  his  grave  and  sometimes  weighty  sonnets. 
Emerson  was  thrifty,  and  a  good  steward  of 
his  own  affairs ;  Alcott  always  seemed  in  a 


AMOS   BRONSON   ALCOTT  25 

stately  way  penniless,  until  the  successful  career 
of  his  daughter  gave  him  ampler  means.  Emer 
son  gave  lectures  with  an  air  of  such  gracious 
humility  that  every  hearer  seemed  to  do  part 
of  the  thinking ;  Alcott  called  his  lectures 
"  conversations,"  and  then  was  made  obviously 
unhappy  if  his  monologue  was  seriously  dis 
turbed  by  any  one  else.  Emerson's  most  star 
tling  early  paradoxes  were  given  with  such  dig 
nity  that  those  hearers  most  hilariously  dis 
posed  were  subdued  to  gravity  ;  Alcott's  most 
thoughtful  sentences,  at  the  same  period,  some 
times  came  with  such  a  flavor  of  needless  whim 
sicality  as  to  make  even  the  faithful  smile. 

Yet  there  was  between  them  a  tie  as  incapa 
ble  of  severance  as  that  which  united  the  Siam 
ese  twins.  Mr.  Emerson  found  in  the  once 
famous  Chardon-Street  and  Bible  Conventions 
no  result  so  interesting  as  the  "gradual  but 
sure  ascendency  "  of  Mr.  Alcott's  spirit  —  "  in 
spite,"  wrote  this  plain-spoken  friend,  "of  the 
incredulity  and  derision  with  which  he  is  at 
first  received,  and  in  spite,  we  might  add,  of  his 
own  failures."  Mr.  Alcott,  as  has  been  said, 
devoted  his  last  years  to  the  delineation  of 
Emerson  as  the  greatest  of  men.  Yet  so  sin 
cere  was  this  mutual  admiration,  so  noble  this 
love,  that  it  is  impossible  to  speak  of  it  with 
anything  but  reverence ;  and  the  far  wider 


26  CONTEMPORARIES 

fame  and  influence  of  Emerson  made  it  for 
Alcott,  during  his  whole  life,  an  immense  advan 
tage  to  have  the  unfailing  support  of  a  friend 
so  eminent. 

For  it  must  be  remembered  that  during  many 
years  the  public  was  scarcely  in  the  habit  of 
taking  Mr.  Alcott  seriously.  It  received  him, 
as  Emerson  said,  "with  incredulity  and  deri 
sion."  His  antecedents  seemed  a  little  ques 
tionable,  to  begin  with.  Born  in  a  country  vil 
lage  in  Connecticut,  and  occupied  for  many 
years  in  the  humble  vocation  of  a  traveling 
salesman  in  Virginia,  —  not  to  say  peddler,  — 
he  came,  in  1828,  before  the  somewhat  narrow 
intellectual  circles  of  Boston  in  a  wholly  differ 
ent  light  from  Emerson,  who  had  every  advan 
tage  of  local  prestige.  Alcott's  school,  which 
became  celebrated  through  the  "  Record  of  a 
School,"  by  his  friend  and  assistant,  Miss  Eliz 
abeth  P.  Peabody  (Boston,  1835  ;  2d  ed->  1836), 
was  generally  regarded  as  coming  near  the 
edge  of  absurdity,  because  of  the  rather  obtru 
sive  reverence  paid  in  it  to  the  offhand  re 
marks  of  children  six  years  old,  and  because 
of  the  singular  theory  of  vicarious  punishment 
which  sometimes  led  to  the  giving  of  physical 
pain  to  teacher  instead  of  pupil.  Yet  this 
school  undoubtedly  anticipated  in  some  respects 
the  views  of  teaching  now  recognized  ;  it  won 


AMOS   BRONSON   ALCOTT  27 

the  warm  approval  of  James  Pierrepont  Greaves, 
the  pupil  and  English  interpreter  of  Pestalozzi ; 
and  it  led  to  the  establishment  of  an  "  Alcott 
House  School "  at  Ham  (Surrey),  in  England, 
by  Henry  G.  Wright,  afterward  Mr.  Alcott's 
colaborer  in  another  direction.  Mr.  Alcott  him 
self  visited  this  school  in  1842,  and  was  lionized 
to  his  heart's  content  —  which  is  saying  a  good 
deal  —  among  English  reformers.  Some  ac 
count  of  this  visit  and  of  the  English  enter 
prise  will  be  found  in  a  paper  by  Mr.  Emerson 
in  the  "  Dial  "  for  October,  1842.  Mr.  Alcott's 
first  conspicuous  social  movement  was  in  the 
very  vague  direction  of  the  Fruitlands  Com 
munity,  at  Harvard,  Mass.,  a  scheme  which 
was  as  much  wilder  than  Brook  Farm  as  Brook 
Farm  was  than  Stewart's  dry-goods  shop,  and 
which  was  amusingly  delineated  by  Miss  Louisa 
Alcott  in  one  of  her  minor  sketches.  His  first 
intellectual  demonstrations  were  in  the  "  Orphic 
Sayings"  of  the  "Dial,"  which  were  regarded 
at  the  time  as  the  reductio  ad  absurdum  of 
those  daring  pages.  How  were  people  to  take 
a  man  seriously  who  wrote,  "  The  popular  gene 
sis  is  historical,"  and  "  Love  globes,  wisdom 
orbs  everything  "  ?  These  sentences  now  seem 
quite  harmless,  though  perhaps  a  little  enig 
matical  ;  but  they  were  then  held  to  be  the 
worst  shibboleth  of  that  new  bugbear,  Tran- 


28  CONTEMPORARIES 

scendentalism ;  and  they  represented  the  most 
unpopular  aspect  of  the  "Dial,"  while  the  more 
plain-spoken  essays  of  Theodore  Parker  were 
what  sold  the  numbers,  so  far  as  they  ever  did 
sell.  Then,  what  Mr.  Alcott  called  conversa 
tions,  in  his  earlier  days,  were  such  startling 
improvisations,  so  full  of  seemingly  studied 
whim  and  utter  paradox,  that  those  who  went 
to  learn  remained  to  smile.  There  was  plenty 
of  thought  in  them,  and  much  out-of-the-way 
literary  knowledge ;  but,  after  all,  the  theories 
of  race,  food,  genesis,  and  what  not,  left  but 
little  impression  on  the  public  mind.  It  awak 
ened  some  surprise  when  the  first  volume  of 
"Appletons'  Cyclopaedia"  (in  1857)  contained  a 
sketch  of  Alcott,  written  by  Emerson.  Thence 
forward  Alcott's  claim  to  recognition  stood  on  a 
basis  a  little  firmer ;  but  he  had  up  to  this  time 
paid  the  price  which  a  hopelessly  ideal  temper 
ament  must  pay  before  it  has  established  its 
right  to  live. 

It  was  fortunate  for  Mr.  Alcott  that  with  this 
ideal  tendency  he  combined  in  a  high  degree 
the  qualities  of  moral  and  physical  courage 
which  have  in  all  ages  been  held  essential  to 
the  true  sage.  This  was  hardly  tested  in  the 
milder  and  safer  reforms,  in  which  he  took  a 
certain  enjoyment,  partly  founded  on  the  promi 
nence  they  gave  him.  He  was  unquestionably 


AMOS   BRONSON   ALCOTT  29 

one  of  those  who  like  to  sit  upon  a  platform,  to 
be  pointed  out,  digito  monstrari,  and  he  may 
have  liked  to  feel  that  his  venerable  aspect  had 
the  effect  of  a  benediction.  But  he  was  equally 
true  to  the  anti-slavery  movement,  when  that 
meant  the  sacrifice  of  friends,  the  diminution 
of  his  always  scanty  finances,  and  even  the 
physical  danger  involved  in  mobs.  Once  at 
least,  in  a  notable  instance,  he  proved  himself 
personally  brave  when  many  others  seemed 
cowards,  this  being  on  the  night  of  the  at 
tempted  rescue  of  the  fugitive  Anthony  Burns, 
in  Boston  (May  26,  I854).1 

It  is  probably  true  that  in  the  later  years  of 
his  life  Mr.  Alcott  felt  some  reaction  from  the 
theological  radicalism  which  at  one  time  marked 
him,  and  which  made  him  in  this  direction  a 
source  of  influence  over  others.  At  the  first 
annual  meeting  of  the  Free  Religious  Asso 
ciation  in  1868,  he  affirmed  his  belief  of  the 
simple  humanity  of  Jesus  Christ,  and  of  the 
essential  identity  of  all  forms  of  the  religious 
sentiment.  He  said  of  this  position  :  — 

"  So  fine,  so  sublime  a  religion  as  ours,  older 
than  Christ,  old  as  the  Godhead,  old  as  the 
soul,  eternal  as  the  heavens,  solid  as  the  rock, 
is  and  only  is ;  nothing  else  is  but  that,  and  it 

1  For  the  details  of  Mr.  Alcott's   demeanor  during  this 
little  incident  see  my  Cheerful  Yesterdays,  p.  148. 


30  CONTEMPORARIES 

is  in  us  and  is  us ;  and  nothing  is  our  real 
selves  but  that  in  the  breast." 

So  identified  was  he  with  the  whole  spirit  of 
that  meeting  as  to  say  of  it,  "  I  have  seen 
many  charmed  days,  and  shared  sublime  hopes  ; 
but  this,  of  all  days  I  have  yet  seen,  is  the 
most  sublime."  But  during  the  later  years  of 
his  life,  though  he  shared  in  the  very  last  meet 
ing  of  this  same  Association,  he  seemed  to  re 
vert  more  towards  the  historical  Christianity 
in  which  his  childhood  was  reared,  taking  an 
active  part  in  various  "  symposia  "  held  by  Mr. 
Joseph  Cook,  at  which  the  veteran  free-thinker 
was  received  with  many  blandishments,  and  was 
introduced  without  compunction  to  strangers  as 
"Mr.  Alcott,  the  American  Plato." 

Mr.  Alcott's  published  volumes  were  as  fol 
lows  :  "  Conversations  with  Children  on  the 
Gospels,  conducted  and  edited  by  A.  B.  Al 
cott,"  2  vols.  (Boston :  Munroe,  1836-37)  ; 
"Spiritual  Culture,  or  Thoughts  for  the  Con 
sideration  of  Parents  and  Teachers  "  (Boston  : 
Dowe,  1841  [this  was  anonymous,  but  was  at 
tributed  to  Mr.  Alcott  by  Charles  Lane  in 
"Dial"  iii.  417]);  "Tablets"  (Boston:  Rob 
erts,  1868);  "Concord  Days"  (Boston:  Rob 
erts,  1872) ;  " Sonnets  and  Canzonets"  (Boston  : 
Roberts,  1882).  To  these  must  be  added  a 
preliminary  sketch  of  Emerson,  printed  but  not 


AMOS    BRONSON    ALCOTT  31 

published,  and  also  many  contributions  to  the 
"Dial"  (1840-44),  the  "Radical,"  and  other 
magazines.  In  the  "  Atlantic  Monthly,"  (ix. 
443)  he  wrote  one  of  the  best  sketches  yet 
made  of  Thoreau,  under  the  title  "  The  For 
ester."  But  he  was  less  disposed  to  pride  him 
self  upon  his  books  than  upon  his  chosen  mode 
of  influence,  conversation ;  and  it  was  through 
this,  rather  than  by  anything  placed  in  the  per 
manent  record  of  print,  that  his  influence  was 
exerted.  He  wrote  in  the  "Dial,"  in  1842, 
"  We  must  come  to  the  simplest  intercourse  — 
to  Conversation  and  the  Epistle.  These  are 
most  potent  agencies  —  the  reformers  of  the 
world"  (ii.  431).  And  he  might  well  feel  it  a 
tribute  to  his  real  power  in  this  chosen  form  of 
propagandism,  that,  after  his  audiences  in  the 
Eastern  States  had  grown  less  numerous  and 
less  attentive,  he  should  have  found  a  wide  cir 
cle  scattered  through  different  Western  cities, 
where  parlors  and  pulpits  were  opened  to  him 
for  an  annual  tour  of  conversation  and  discourse, 
sending  him  back  each  year  happy,  refreshed, 
and  —  wonder  of  all  wonders  —  with  money  in 
his  purse. 

Mr.  Alcott  contributed  even  less  than  Emer 
son  to  anything  that  can  be  called  systematic 
thought ;  he  was  indeed  by  nature  more  remote 
than  Emerson  from  anything  to  be  called  a  sys- 


32  CONTEMPORARIES 

tern.  Yet  the  good  that  he  did  was  not  merely 
fragmentary  and  sporadic ;  it  might  rather  be 
called,  using  one  of  his  own  high-sounding  ad 
jectives,  atmospheric  ;  it  lay  in  the  atmosphere 
of  the  man,  his  benign  face,  his  pure  life,  his 
only  too  willing  acceptance  of  everything  that 
looked  like  original  thought  in  others.  More 
than  all,  it  lay  in  the  persistent  moral  activity 
that  could  outlive  what  Emerson  called  his 
"  failure,"  could  outgrow  the  censure  of  his 
critics,  outgrow  even  his  earlier  self.  In  some 
respects  he  always  remained  the  same,  even 
to  his  weaknesses ;  there  was  always  a  cer 
tain  air  of  high-souled  attitudinizing ;  he  still 
seemed  to  be  in  a  manner  "  an  innocent  charla 
tan."  Even  his  latest  achievement,  the  "  Con 
cord  Summer  School  of  Philosophy,"  had  al 
ways  an  indefinable  air  of  posing  for  something 
that  it  was  not.  It  undoubtedly  fulfilled  Mr. 
Alcott's  most  delicious  visions  to  find  himself 
the  centre  of  an  admiring  group  of  young  dis 
ciples,  having  the  Assabet  River  for  an  Ilissus 
and  the  Concord  elms  for  the  historic  plane- 
trees  ;  but,  after  all,  the  institution,  like  its 
name,  was  a  little  incongruous  ;  there  was 
plenty  of  summer,  something  of  philosophy, 
and  very  little  school.  Probably  most  of  those 
who  were  assembled  came  simply  with  a  desire 
to  place  themselves  in  contact  with  Mr.  Alcott ; 


AMOS   BRONSON   ALCOTT  33 

and  this  was  the  highest  compliment  they  could 
pay  him.  They  instinctively  felt,  as  all  may 
well  feel,  that  the  essential  fidelity  of  the  man 
to  great  abstract  principles  made  him  a  living 
exponent,  not  merely  of  the  temporary  school 
of  Transcendentalism,  but  of  the  whole  ideal 
attitude.  Now  that  he  has  passed  away,  all  his 
little  vanities,  if  he  had  them,  —  all  his  oracular 
way  of  peering  into  the  dark  and  winning  but 
little  out  of  it,  —  these  defects,  if  they  were 
defects,  disappear  in  the  sweetness  and  dignity 
of  a  life  so  prolonged  and  so  honorable.  There 
lives  no  man  who  ever  found  in  Mr.  Alcott  an 
enemy  ;  there  exists  no  man  who  ever  went  to 
him  for  counsel  and  found  him  unsympathetic 
or  impatient ;  while  there  are  many  men  who, 
at  the  forming  period  of  their  intellectual  ex 
istence,  have  derived  from  him  a  lifelong  im 
petus  towards  noble  aims. 


THEODORE  PARKER 

"  Sir  Launcelot !  ther  thou  lyest ;  thou  were  never  matched  of  none 
earthly  knights  hands  ;  thou  were  the  truest  freende  to  thy  lover  that  ever 
bestrood  horse;  and  thou  were  the  kindest  man  that  ever  strooke  with 
sword  ;  and  thou  were  the  sternest  knight  to  thy  mortall  foe  that  ever  put 
spere  in  the  rest." 

La  Morte  d*  Arthur. 

IN  the  year  1828  there  was  a  young  man  of 
eighteen  at  work  upon  a  farm  in  Lexington, 
Massachusetts,  performing  bodily  labor  to  the 
extent  of  twenty  hours  in  a  day  sometimes,  and 
that  for  several  days  together,  and  at  other 
times  studying  intensely  when  outdoor  work 
was  less  pressing.  Thirty  years  after,  that 
same  man  sat  in  the  richest  private  library 
in  Boston,  working  habitually  from  twelve  to 
seventeen  hours  a  day  in  severer  toil.  The 
interval  was  crowded  with  labors,  with  acqui 
sitions,  with  reproaches,  with  victories,  with 
honors ;  and  he  who  experienced  all  this  died 
exhausted  at  the  end  of  it,  less  than  fifty  years 
old,  but  looking  seventy.  That  man  was  Theo 
dore  Parker,  who  was  born  at  Lexington,  August 
24,  1810,  and  died  at  Florence,  Italy,  May  10, 
1860. 

Theodore  Parker  was   so   strong  and   self- 


THEODORE    PARKER  35 

sufficing  upon  his  own  ground,  he  needed  so 
little  from  any  other  person,  while  giving  so 
freely  to  all,  that  one  would  hardly  venture  to 
add  anything  to  the  autobiographies  he  has  left, 
but  for  the  high  example  he  set  of  fearlessness 
in  dealing  with  the  dead.  There  may  be  some 
whose  fame  is  so  ill-established,  that  one  shrinks 
from  speaking  of  them  precisely  as  one  saw 
them  ;  but  this  man's  place  is  secure,  and  that 
friend  best  praises  him  who  paints  him  just  as 
he  seemed.  To  depict  him  as  he  actually  was 
must  be  the  work  of  many  men,  and  no  single 
narrator,  however  intimate,  need  attempt  it. 

The  first  thing  that  struck  an  observer,  in  lis 
tening  to  the  words  of  public  and  private  feeling 
elicited  by  his  departure,  was  the  predominance 
in  them  all  of  the  sentiment  of  love.  His  ser 
vices,  his  speculations,  his  contests,  his  copious 
eloquence,  his  many  languages,  —  these  came 
in  as  secondary  things,  but  the  predominant 
testimony  was  emotional.  Men  mourned  the 
friend  even  more  than  the  warrior.  As  he  sat 
in  his  library,  in  Boston,  he  was  not  only  the 
awakener  of  a  thousand  intellects,  but  the  centre 
of  a  thousand  hearts  ;  he  furnished  the  natural 
home  for  every  foreign  refugee,  every  hunted 
slave,  every  stray  thinker,  every  vexed  and  sor 
rowing  woman.  Never  was  there  one  of  these 
who  went  away  uncomforted,  and  from  every 


36  CONTEMPORARIES 

part  of  this  broad  nation  their  scattered  hands 
have  flung  roses  upon  his  grave. 

This  immense  debt  of  gratitude  was  not 
bought  by  any  mere  isolated  acts  of  virtue,  but 
by  the  habit  of  a  life.  In  the  midst  of  his  great 
est  cares  there  never  was  a  moment  when  he 
was  not  all  too  generous  of  his  time,  his  wisdom, 
and  his  money.  Borne  down  by  the  accumula 
tion  of  labors,  —  grudging,  as  a  student  grudges, 
the  precious  hour  that  once  lost  can  never  be 
won  back,  —  he  yet  was  always  holding  himself 
at  the  call  of  some  poor  criminal  at  the  Police 
Office,  or  some  fugitive  from  Southern  bond 
age,  or  some  sick  girl  in  a  suburban  town,  not 
of  his  recognized  parish,  perhaps,  but  longing 
for  the  ministry  of  the  only  preacher  who  had 
touched  her  soul.  Not  a  mere  wholesale  re 
former,  he  wore  out  his  life  by  retailing  its  great 
influences  to  the  poorest  comer.  Not  generous 
in  money  only,  —  though  the  readiness  of  his 
beneficence  in  that  direction  had  few  equals,  — 
he  always  hastened  past  that  minor  bestowal  to 
ask  if  there  were  not  some  other  added  gift 
possible,  some  personal  service  or  correspond 
ence,  some  life-blood,  in  short,  to  be  lavished  in 
some  other  form,  to  eke  out  the  already  liberal 
donation  of  dollars. 

There  is  an  impression  that  he  was  unforgiv 
ing.  Unforgetting  he  certainly  was  ;  for  he 


THEODORE   PARKER  37 

had  no  power  of  f orgetf ulness,  whether  for  good 
or  evil.  He  had  none  of  that  convenient 
oblivion  which  in  softer  natures  covers  sin  and 
saintliness  with  one  common,  careless  pall.  So 
long  as  a  man  persisted  in  a  wrong  attitude  be 
fore  God  or  man,  there  was  no  day  so  laborious 
or  exhausting,  no  night  so  long  or  drowsy,  but 
Theodore  Parker's  unsleeping  memory  stood  on 
guard  full-armed,  ready  to  do  battle  at  a  mo 
ment's  warning.  This  is  generally  known  ;  but 
what  may  not  be  known  so  widely  is  that,  the 
moment  the  adversary  lowered  his  spear,  were 
it  for  only  an  inch  or  an  instant,  that  moment 
Theodore  Parker's  weapons  were  down  and  his 
arms  open.  Make  but  the  slightest  concession, 
give  him  but  the  least  excuse  to  love  you,  and 
never  was  there  seen  such  promptness  in  par 
doning.  His  friends  found  it  sometimes  harder 
to  justify  his  mildness  than  his  severity.  I  con 
fess  that  I,  with  others,  have  often  felt  inclined 
to  criticise  a  certain  caustic  tone  of  his,  in  pri 
vate  talk,  when  the  name  of  an  offender  was 
alluded  to  ;  but  I  have  also  felt  almost  indignant 
at  his  lenient  good-nature  to  that  very  person, 
let  him  once  show  the  smallest  symptom  of 
contrition,  or  seek,  even  in  the  clumsiest  way, 
or  for  the  most  selfish  purpose,  to  disarm  his 
generous  antagonist.  His  forgiveness  in  such 
cases  was  more  exuberant  than  his  wrath  had 
ever  been. 


38  CONTEMPORARIES 

It  is  inevitable,  in  describing  him,  to  charac 
terize  his  life  first  by  its  quantity.  He  belonged 
to  the  true  race  of  the  giants  of  learning ;  he 
took  in  knowledge  at  every  pore,  and  his  desires 
were  insatiable.  Not,  perhaps,  precocious  in 
boyhood,  —  for  it  is  not  precocity  to  begin  Latin 
at  ten  and  Greek  at  eleven,  to  enter  the  Fresh 
man  class  at  twenty  and  the  professional  school 
at  twenty-three,  —  he  was  equaled  by  few  stu 
dents  in  the  tremendous  rates  at  which  he  pur 
sued  every  study,  when  once  begun.  With 
strong  body  and  great  constitutional  industry, 
always  acquiring  and  never  forgetting,  he  was 
doubtless  at  the  time  of  his  death  the  most  va 
riously  learned  of  living  Americans,  as  well  as 
one  of  the  most  prolific  of  orators  and  writers. 

Why  did  Theodore  Parker  die  ?  He  died  pre 
maturely  worn  out  through  this  enormous  activ 
ity,  —  a  warning,  as  well  as  an  example.  To 
all  appeals  for  moderation,  during  the  latter 
years  of  his  life,  he  had  but  one  answer,  —  that 
he  had  six  generations  of  long-lived  farmers  be 
hind  him,  and  had  their  strength  to  draw  upon. 
All  his  physical  habits,  except  in  this  respect, 
were  unexceptionable :  he  was  abstemious  in 
diet,  but  not  ascetic,  kept  no  unwholesome 
hours,  tried  no  dangerous  experiments,  commit 
ted  no  excesses.  But  there  is  no  man  who  can 
habitually  study  from  twelve  to  seventeen  hours 


THEODORE   PARKER  39 

a  day  —  his  friend  James  Freeman  Clarke  con 
tracts  it  to  "  from  six  to  twelve,"  but  I  have 
Mr.  Parker's  own  statement  of  the  fact — with 
out  ultimate  self-destruction.  Nor  was  this  the 
practice  during  his  period  of  health  alone,  but  it 
was  pushed  to  the  last  moment.  He  continued 
in  the  pulpit  long  after  a  withdrawal  was  per 
emptorily  prescribed  for  him  ;  and  when  forbid 
den  to  leave  home  for  lecturing,  during  the  win 
ter  of  1858,  he  straightway  prepared  the  most 
laborious  literary  works  of  his  life,  for  delivery 
as  lectures  in  the  Fraternity  Course  at  Boston. 
He  worked  thus,  not  from  ambition,  nor  alto 
gether  from  principle,  but  from  an  immense 
craving  for  mental  labor,  which  had  become 
second  nature  to  him.  His  great,  omnivorous, 
hungry  intellect  must  have  constant  food,  —  new 
languages,  new  statistics,  new  historical  investi 
gations,  new  scientific  discoveries,  new  systems 
of  scriptural  exegesis.  He  did  not  for  a  day  in 
the  year  nor  an  hour  in  the  day  make  rest  a 
matter  of  principle,  nor  did  he  ever  indulge  in 
it  as  a  pleasure,  for  he  knew  no  enjoyment  so 
great  as  labor.  Wordsworth's  "wise  passive- 
ness  "  was  utterly  foreign  to  his  nature.  Had 
he  been  a  mere  student,  this  had  been  less  de 
structive.  But  to  take  the  standard  of  study  of 
a  German  professor,  and  superadd  to  that  the 
separate  exhaustions  of  a  Sunday  preacher,  a 


40  CONTEMPORARIES 

lyceum  lecturer,  a  radical  leader,  and  a  practical 
philanthropist,  was  simply  to  apply  half  a  dozen 
distinct  suicides  to  the  abbreviation  of  a  single 
life.  And  as  his  younger  companions  had  long 
assured  him,  the  tendency  of  his  career  was 
not  only  to  kill  himself,  but  them ;  for  each 
assumed  that  he  must  at  least  attempt  what 
Theodore  Parker  accomplished. 

It  is  very  certain  that  his  career  was  much 
shortened  by  these  enormous  labors,  and  it  is 
not  certain  that  its  value  was  increased  in  a 
sufficient  ratio  to  compensate  for  that  evil.  He 
justified  his  incessant  winter  lecturing  by  the 
fact  that  the  whole  country  was  his  parish, 
though  this  was  not  an  adequate  excuse.  But 
what  right  had  he  to  deprive  himself  even  of  the 
accustomed  summer  respite  of  ordinary  preach 
ers,  and  waste  the  golden  July  hours  in  studying 
Sclavonic  dialects  ?  No  doubt  his  work  in  the 
world  was  greatly  aided  both  by  the  fact  and 
the  fame  of  learning,  and,  as  he  himself  some 
what  disdainfully  said,  the  knowledge  of  Greek 
and  Hebrew  was  "a  convenience  "  in  theologi 
cal  discussions  ;  but,  after  all,  his  popular  power 
did  not  mainly  depend  on  his  mastery  of  twenty 
languages,  but  of  one.  Theodore  Parker's  learn 
ing  was  undoubtedly  a  valuable  possession  to 
the  community,  but  it  was  not  worth  the  price 
of  Theodore  Parker's  life. 


THEODORE   PARKER  41 

"  Strive  constantly  to  concentrate  yourself," 
said  the  laborious  Goethe;  "never  dissipate 
your  powers ;  incessant  activity,  of  whatever 
kind,  leads  finally  to  bankruptcy."  But  Theo 
dore  Parker's  whole  endeavor  was  to  multiply 
his  channels,  and  he  exhausted  his  life  in  the 
effort  to  do  all  men's  work.  He  was  a  hard  man 
to  relieve,  to  help,  or  to  cooperate  with.  Thus, 
the  "  Massachusetts  Quarterly  Review,"  his 
especial  organ,  began  with  a  promising  corps 
of  contributors ;  but  when  it  appeared  that  its 
editor,  if  left  alone,  would  willingly  undertake 
all  the  articles,  —  science,  history,  literature, 
everything,  —  of  course  the  others  yielded  to 
inertia  and  dropped  away.  So,  some  years  later, 
when  some  of  us  met  at  his  house  to  consult  on 
a  cheap  series  of  popular  theological  works,  he 
himself  was  so  rich  in  his  own  private  plans  that 
all  the  rest  were  impoverished ;  nothing  could 
be  named  but  he  had  been  planning  just  that 
for  years,  and  should  by  and  by  get  leisure  for 
it,  and  there  really  was  not  enough  left  to  call 
out  the  energies  of  any  one  else.  Not  from 
any  petty  egotism,  but  simply  from  inordinate 
activity,  he  stood  ready  to  take  all  the  parts. 

He  thus  distanced  everybody ;  every  com 
panion  scholar  found  soon  that  it  was  impos 
sible  to  keep  pace  with  one  who  was  always  ac 
cumulating  and  losing  nothing.  Most  students 


42  CONTEMPORARIES 

find  it  necessary  to  be  constantly  forgetting  some 
things  to  make  room  for  later  arrivals  ;  but  the 
peculiarity  of  his  memory  was  that  he  let  no 
thing  go.  I  have  more  than  once  heard  him  give 
a  minute  analysis  of  the  contents  of  some  dull 
book  read  by  him  twenty  years  before,  and 
have  afterwards  found  the  statement  correct 
and  exhaustive.  His  great  library,  although 
latterly  collected  more  for  public  than  personal 
uses,  was  one  which  no  other  man  in  the  nation, 
probably,  had  at  that  time  the  bibliographical 
knowledge  to  select.  It  seems  as  if  its  pos 
sessor,  putting  all  his  practical  and  popular  side 
into  his  eloquence  and  action,  had  indemnified 
himself  by  investing  all  his  scholarship  in  a 
library  of  which  less  than  one  quarter  of  the 
books  were  in  the  English  language. 

All  unusual  learning,  however,  brings  with 
it  the  suspicion  of  superficiality ;  and  in  this 
country,  where,  as  Parker  himself  said,  "  every 
one  gets  a  mouthful  of  education,  but  scarce 
one  a  full  meal,"  —  where  every  one  who  makes 
a  Latin  quotation  is  styled  "  a  ripe  scholar,"  — 
it  is  sometimes  difficult  to  distinguish  the  true 
from  the  counterfeit.  It  is,  however,  possible 
to  apply  some  tests.  I  remember,  for  instance, 
that  one  of  the  few  undoubted  classical  scholars, 
in  the  old-fashioned  sense,  whom  New  England 
has  seen>  —  the  late  John  Glen  King  of  Salem, 


THEODORE   PARKER  43 

—  while  speaking  with  very  limited  respect  of 
the  acquirements  of  Rufus  Choate  in  this  direc 
tion,  and  with  utter  contempt  of  those  of  Daniel 
Webster,  always  became  enthusiastic  on  coming 
to  Theodore  Parker.  "  He  is  the  only  man," 
said  Mr.  King  more  than  once  to  the  writer, 
"  with  whom  I  can  sit  down  and  seriously  dis 
cuss  a  disputed  reading  and  find  him  familiar 
with  all  that  has  been  written  upon  it."  Yet 
Greek  and  Latin  were  only  the  preliminaries 
of  Parker's  scholarship. 

I  know,  for  one,  —  and  there  are  many  who 
will  bear  the  same  testimony,  —  that  I  never 
went  to  Parker  to  talk  over  a  subject  which 
I  had  just  made  a  specialty,  without  finding 
that  on  that  particular  matter  he  happened  to 
know,  without  any  special  investigation,  more 
than  I  did.  This  extended  beyond  books,  some 
times  stretching  into  things  where  his  ques 
tioner's  opportunities  of  knowledge  had  seemed 
considerably  greater,  —  as,  for  instance,  in  points 
connected  with  the  habits  of  our  native  animals 
and  the  phenomena  of  outdoor  Nature.  Such 
were  his  wonderful  quickness  and  his  infallible 
memory,  that  glimpses  of  these  things  did  for 
him  the  work  of  years.  But  of  course  it  was 
in  the  world  of  books  that  this  wonderful  supe 
riority  was  chiefly  seen,  and  the  following  ex 
ample  may  serve  as  one  of  the  most  striking 
among  many. 


44  CONTEMPORARIES 

It  happened  to  me,  many  years  since,  in  the 
course  of  some  historical  inquiries,  to  wish  for 
fuller  information  in  regard  to  the  barbarous 
feudal  codes  of  the  Middle  Ages,  —  as  the  Salic, 
Burgundian,  and  Ripuarian,  —  before  the  time 
of  Charlemagne.  The  common  historians,  even 
Hallam,  gave  no  very  satisfactory  information 
and  referred  to  no  very  available  books ;  and 
supposing  it  to  be  a  matter  of  which  every  well- 
read  lawyer  would  at  least  know  something,  I 
asked  help  of  the  most  scholarly  member  of 
that  profession  within  my  reach  —  a  man  who 
is  now,  by  the  way,  a  leader  in  the  United 
States  Senate.  He  regretted  his  inability  to 
give  me  any  aid,  but  referred  me  to  a  friend 
of  his,  who  was  soon  to  visit  him,  a  young  man 
who  was  already  eminent  for  legal  learning. 
The  friend  soon  arrived,  but  owned,  with  some 
regret,  that  he  had  paid  no  attention  to  that 
particular  subject,  and  did  not  even  know  what 
books  to  refer  to  ;  but  he  would  at  least  ascer 
tain  what  they  were,  and  let  me  know.  [I  may 
add  that  although  he  is  now  a  Justice  of  the 
Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States,  I  have 
never  heard  from  him  again.]  Stimulated  by 
ill-success,  I  aimed  higher,  and  struck  at  the 
Supreme  Bench  of  Massachusetts,  breaking  in 
on  the  mighty  repose  of  his  Honor  with  the 
name  of  Charlemagne.  "  Charlemagne  ? "  re- 


THEODORE   PARKER  45 

sponded  my  lord  j  udge,  rubbing  his  burly  brow, 
— "  Charlemagne  lived,  I  think,  in  the  sixth 
century  ? "  Dismayed,  I  retreated,  with  little 
further  inquiry  ;  and  sure  of  one  man,  at  least, 
to  whom  law  meant  also  history  and  literature, 
I  took  refuge  with  Charles  Sumner.  That 
accomplished  scholar,  himself  for  once  at  fault, 
could  only  frankly  advise  me  to  do  at  last  what 
I  ought  to  have  done  at  first,  —  to  apply  to 
Theodore  Parker.  I  did  so.  "  Go,"  he  replied 
instantly,  "  to  alcove  twenty  -  four,  shelf  one 
hundred  and  thirteen,  of  the  College  Library  at 
Cambridge,  and  you  will  find  the  information 
you  need  in  a  thick  quarto,  bound  in  vellum, 
and  lettered  'Potgiesser  de  Statu  Servorum.'  " 
I  straightway  sent  for  Potgiesser,  and  found  my 
fortune  made.  It  was  one  of  those  patient  old 
German  treatises  which  cost  the  labor  of  one 
man's  life  to  compile  and  another's  to  exhaust, 
and  I  had  no  reason  to  suppose  that  any  reader 
had  disturbed  its  repose  until  that  unwearied 
industry  had  explored  the  library. 

Amid  such  multiplicity  of  details  he  must 
sometimes  have  made  mistakes,  and  with  his 
great  quickness  of  apprehension  he  sometimes 
formed  hasty  conclusions.  But  no  one  has  a 
right  to  say  that  his  great  acquirements  were 
bought  by  any  habitual  sacrifice  of  thorough 
ness.  To  say  that  they  sometimes  impaired 


46  CONTEMPORARIES 

the  quality  of  his  thought  would  undoubtedly 
be  more  just;  and  this  is  a  serious  charge  to 
bring.  Learning  is  not  accumulation,  but  as 
similation  ;  every  man's  real  acquirements  must 
pass  into  his  own  organization,  and  undue  or 
hasty  nutrition  does  no  good.  The  most  price 
less  knowledge  is  not  worth  the  smallest  im 
pairing  of  the  quality  of  the  thinking.  The 
scholar  cannot  afford,  any  more  than  the  farmer, 
to  lavish  his  strength  in  clearing  more  land 
than  he  can  cultivate ;  and  Theodore  Parker 
was  compelled  by  the  natural  limits  of  time  and 
strength  to  let  vast  tracts  lie  fallow,  and  to 
miss  something  of  the  natural  resources  of  the 
soil.  One  sometimes  wished  that  he  had  stud 
ied  less  and  dreamed  more. 

But  it  was  in  popularizing  thought  and  know 
ledge  that  his  great  and  wonderful  power  lay. 
Not  an  original  thinker,  in  the  same  sense  with 
Emerson,  he  yet  translated  for  tens  of  thou 
sands  that  which  Emerson  spoke  to  hundreds 
only.  No  matter  who  had  been  heard  on  any 
subject,  the  great  mass  of  intelligent,  "pro 
gressive  "  New  England  thinkers  waited  to  hear 
the  thing  summed  up  by  Theodore  Parker. 
This  popular  interest  went  far  beyond  the  cir 
cle  of  his  avowed  sympathizers  ;  he  might  be 
a  heretic,  but  nobody  could  deny  that  he  was  a 
marksman.  No  matter  how  well  others  seemed 


THEODORE   PARKER  47 

to  have  hit  the  target,  his  shot  was  the  tri 
umphant  one,  at  last.  Thinkers  might  find  no 
new  thought  in  the  new  discourse,  leaders  of 
action  no  new  plan,  yet,  after  all  that  had  been 
said  and  done,  his  was  the  statement  that  told 
upon  the  community.  He  knew  this  power 
of  his,  and  had  analyzed  some  of  the  methods 
by  which  he  had  attained  it,  though,  after  all, 
the  best  part  was  an  unconscious  and  magnetic 
faculty.  But  he  early  learned,  so  he  once  told 
me,  that  the  New  England  people  dearly  love 
two  things,  —  a  philosophical  arrangement  and 
a  plenty  of  statistics.  To  these,  therefore,  he 
treated  them  thoroughly  ;  in  some  of  his  "  Ten 
Sermons  "  the  demand  made  upon  the  syste 
matizing  power  of  his  audience  was  really  for 
midable  ;  and  I  have  always  remembered  a 
certain  lecture  of  his  on  the  Anglo-Saxons  as 
the  most  wonderful  instance  that  ever  came 
within  my  knowledge  of  the  adaptation  of  solid 
learning  to  the  popular  intellect.  Nearly  two 
hours  of  almost  unadorned  fact,  —  for  there 
was  far  less  than  usual  of  relief  and  illustra 
tion,  —  and  yet  the  lyceum  audience  listened 
to  it  as  if  an  angel  sang  to  them.  So  perfect 
was  his  sense  of  purpose  and  of  power,  so 
clear  and  lucid  was  his  delivery,  with  such  won 
derful  composure  did  he  lay  out,  section  by 
section,  his  historical  chart,  that  he  grasped  his 


48  CONTEMPORARIES 

hearers  as  absolutely  as  he  grasped  his  sub 
ject, —  one  was  compelled  to  believe  that  he 
might  read  the  people  the  Sanskrit  Lexicon, 
and  they  would  listen  with  ever  fresh  delight. 
Without  actual  grace  or  beauty  or  melody,  his 
mere  elocution  was  sufficient  to  produce  effects 
for  which  melody  and  grace  and  beauty  might 
have  sighed  in  vain.  I  always  felt  that  he  well 
described  his  own  eloquence  while  describing 
Luther's,  in  one  of  the  most  admirably  moulded 
sentences  he  ever  achieved,  —  "  The  homely 
force  of  Luther,  who,  in  the  language  of  the 
farm,  the  shop,  the  boat,  the  street,  or  the 
nursery,  told  the  high  truths  that  reason  or 
religion  taught,  and  took  possession  of  his  audi 
ence  by  a  storm  of  speech,  then  poured  upon 
them  all  the  riches  of  his  brave  plebeian  soul, 
baptizing  every  head  anew,  —  a  man  who  with 
the  people  seemed  more  mob  than  they,  and 
with  kings  the  most  imperial  man." 

Another  key  to  his  strong  hold  upon  the 
popular  mind  was  to  be  found  in  his  thorough 
Americanism  of  training  and  sympathy.  Sur 
charged  with  European  learning,  he  yet  re 
mained  at  heart  the  Lexington  farmer's  boy, 
and  his  whole  harvest  was  indigenous,  not  ex 
otic.  Not  haunted  by  any  of  the  distrust  and 
over-criticism  which  are  apt  to  effeminate  the 
American  scholar,  he  plunged  deep  into  the 


THEODORE    PARKER  49 

current  of  hearty  national  life  around  him,  loved 
it,  trusted  it,  believed  in  it ;  and  the  combina 
tion  of  this  vital  faith  with  such  tremendous 
criticism  of  public  and  private  sins  formed  an 
irresistible  power.  He  could  condemn  with 
out  crushing,  —  denounce  mankind,  yet  save  it 
from  despair.  Thus  his  pulpit  became  one  of 
the  great  forces  of  the  nation,  like  the  New 
York  "Tribune."  His  printed  volumes  had 
but  a  limited  circulation,  owing  to  a  defective 
system  of  publication,  which  his  friends  tried 
in  vain  to  correct ;  but  the  circulation  of  his 
pamphlet  discourses  was  very  great ;  he  issued 
them  faster  and  faster,  latterly  often  in  pairs, 
and  they  instantly  spread  far  and  wide.  Ac 
cordingly  he  found  his  listeners  everywhere ; 
he  could  not  go  so  far  West  but  his  abundant 
fame  had  preceded  him ;  his  lecture  room  in 
the  remotest  places  was  crowded,  and  his  hotel 
chamber  also,  until  late  at  night.  Probably 
there  was  no  private  man  in  the  nation,  un 
less  it  were  Beecher  or  Greeley,  whom  personal 
strangers  were  so  eager  to  see ;  while  from  a 
transatlantic  direction  he  was  sought  by  vis 
itors  to  whom  the  two  other  names  were  utterly 
unknown.  Learned  men  from  the  continent  of 
Europe  always  found  their  way,  first  or  last,  to 
Exeter  Place ;  and  it  is  said  that  Thackeray,  on 
his  voyage  to  this  country,  declared  that  the 


50  CONTEMPORARIES 

thing  in  America  which  he  most  desired  was  to 
hear  Theodore  Parker  talk. 

Indeed,  his  conversational  power  was  so  won 
derful  that  no  one  could  go  away  from  a  first 
interview  without  astonishment  and  delight. 
There  are  those  among  us,  it  may  be,  more 
brilliant  in  anecdote  or  repartee,  more  eloquent, 
more  profoundly  suggestive  ;  but  for  the  out 
pouring  of  vast  floods  of  various  and  delightful 
information,  I  believe  that  he  could  have  had 
no  Anglo-Saxon  rival,  except  Macaulay.  In 
Parker's  case,  moreover,  there  was  no  alloy 
of  conversational  arrogance  or  impatience  of 
opposition.  He  monopolized  not  because  he 
was  ever  unwilling  to  hear  others,  but  because 
they  did  not  care  to  hear  themselves  when  he 
was  by.  The  subject  made  no  difference ;  he 
could  talk  on  anything.  I  was  once  with  him 
in  the  society  of  an  intelligent  Quaker  farmer, 
when  the  conversation  fell  on  agriculture  :  the 
farmer  held  his  own  ably  for  a  time ;  but  long 
after  he  was  drained  dry,  our  wonderful  com 
panion  still  flowed  on  exhaustless,  with  ac 
counts  of  Nova  Scotia  ploughing  and  Tennes 
see  hoeing,  and  all  things  rural,  ancient  and 
modern,  good  and  bad,  till  it  seemed  as  if  the 
one  amusing  and  interesting  theme  in  the  uni 
verse  were  the  farm.  But  it  soon  proved  that 
this  was  only  one  among  his  thousand  depart- 


THEODORE   PARKER  51 

ments,  and  his  hearers  felt,  as  was  said  of  old 
Fuller,  as  if  he  had  served  his  time  at  every 
trade  in  town. 

But  it  must  now  be  owned  that  these  aston 
ishing  results  were  bought  by  some  intellectual 
sacrifices  which  his  nearer  friends  do  not  all  re 
cognize,  but  which  posterity  will  mourn.  Such 
a  rate  of  speed  is  incompatible  with  the  finest 
literary  execution.  A  delicate  literary  ear  he 
might  have  had,  perhaps,  but  he  very  seldom 
stopped  to  cultivate  or  even  indulge  it.  This 
neglect  was  not  produced  by  his  frequent  habit 
of  extemporaneous  speech  alone ;  for  it  is  a 
singular  fact  that  Wendell  Phillips,  who  rarely 
wrote  a  line,  yet  contrived  to  give  to  his  has 
tiest  efforts  the  air  of  elaborate  preparation, 
while  Theodore  Parker's  most  scholarly  per 
formances  were  still  stump  speeches.  Vigor 
ous,  rich,  brilliant,  copious,  they  yet  seldom 
afford  a  sentence  which  falls  in  perfect  cadence 
upon  the  ear ;  under  a  show  of  regular  method, 
they  are  loose  and  diffuse,  and  often  have  the 
qualities  which  he  himself  attributed  to  the 
style  of  John  Quincy  Adams,  —  "  disorderly,  ill- 
compacted,  and  homely  to  a  fault."  He  said 
of  Dr.  Channing,  —  "  Diff useness  is  the  old 
Adam  of  the  pulpit.  There  are  always  two 
ways  of  hitting  the  mark,  —  one  with  a  single 
bullet,  the  other  with  a  shower  of  small  shot : 


52  CONTEMPORARIES 

Dr.  Channing  chose  the  latter,  as  most  of  our 
pulpit  orators  have  done."  Theodore  Parker 
chose  it  also. 

Perhaps  nature  and  necessity  chose  it  for 
him.  If  not  his  temperament,  at  least  the  cir 
cumstances  of  his  position  cut  him  off  from  all 
high  literary  finish.  He  created  the  congrega 
tion  at  the  Music  Hall,  and  that  congregation, 
in  turn,  moulded  his  whole  life.  For  that  great 
stage  his  eloquence  became  inevitably  a  kind  of 
brilliant  scene  painting,  —  large,  fresh,  profuse, 
rapid,  showy ;  masses  of  light  and  shade,  won 
derful  effects,  but  farewell  forever  to  all  finer 
touches  and  delicate  gradations !  No  man 
can  write  for  posterity  while  hastily  snatching 
a  half  day  from  a  week's  lecturing,  during 
which  to  prepare  a  telling  Sunday  harangue 
for  three  thousand  people.  In  the  perpetual 
rush  and  hurry  of  his  life,  he  had  no  time  to 
select,  to  discriminate,  to  omit  anything,  or  to 
mature  anything.  He  had  the  opportunities, 
the  provocatives,  and  the  drawbacks  which 
make  the  work  and  mar  the  fame  of  the  pro 
fessional  journalist.  His  intellectual  existence, 
after  he  left  the  quiet  of  West  Roxbury,  was 
from  hand  to  mouth.  Needing  above  all  men 
to  concentrate  himself,  he  was  compelled  by 
his  whole  position  to  lead  a  profuse  and  mis 
cellaneous  life. 


THEODORE   PARKER  53 

All  popular  orators  must  necessarily  repeat 
themselves,  —  preachers  chiefly  among  orators, 
and  Theodore  Parker  chiefly  among  preachers. 
The  mere  frequency  of  production  makes  this 
inevitable, — a  fact  which  always  makes  every 
finely  organized  intellect,  first  or  last,  grow 
weary  of  the  pulpit.  But  in  his  case  there 
were  other  compulsions.  Every  Sunday  a 
quarter  part  of  his  vast  congregation  consisted 
of  persons  who  had  never,  or  scarcely  ever, 
heard  him  before,  and  who  might  never  hear 
him  again.  Not  one  of  those  visitors  must  go 
away,  therefore,  without  hearing  the  great 
preacher  define  his  position  on  every  point,  — 
not  theology  alone,  but  all  current  events  and 
permanent  principles,  the  presidential  nomina 
tion  or  message,  the  laws  of  trade,  the  laws  of 
Congress,  woman's  rights,  woman's  costume, 
Boston  slave-kidnappers,  and  Dr.  Banbaby,  — 
he  must  put  it  all  in.  His  ample  discourse 
must  be  like  an  Oriental  poem,  which  begins 
with  the  creation  of  the  universe,  and  includes 
all  subsequent  facts  incidentally.  It  is  astonish 
ing  to  look  over  his  published  sermons  and 
addresses,  and  see  under  how  many  different 
names  the  same  stirring  speech  has  been  re 
printed  :  new  illustrations,  new  statistics,  and  all 
remoulded  with  such  freshness  that  the  hearer 
had  no  suspicions,  nor  the  speaker,  either,  — 


54  CONTEMPORARIES 

and  yet  the  same  essential  thing.  Sunday  dis 
course,  lyceum  lecture,  convention  speech,  it 
made  no  difference,  he  must  cover  all  the  points 
every  time.  No  matter  what  theme  might  be 
announced,  the  people  got  the  whole  latitude 
and  longitude  of  Theodore  Parker,  and  that 
was  precisely  what  they  wanted.  He,  more 
than  any  other  man  among  us,  broke  down 
the  traditional  non-committalism  of  the  lecture 
room,  and  oxygenated  all  the  lyceums  of  the 
land.  He  thus  multiplied  his  audience  very 
greatly,  while  doubtless  losing  to  some  degree 
the  power  of  close  logic  and  of  addressing  a 
specific  statement  to  a  special  point.  Yet  it 
seemed  as  if  he  could  easily  leave  the  lancet 
to  others,  grant  him  only  the  hammer  and  the 
forge. 

Ah,  but  the  long  centuries,  where  the  read 
ing  of  books  is  concerned,  set  aside  all  con 
siderations  of  quantity,  of  popularity,  of  im 
mediate  influence,  and  sternly  test  by  quality 
alone,  — judge  each  author  by  his  most  golden 
sentence,  and  let  all  else  go.  The  deeds  make 
the  man,  but  it  is  the  style  which  makes  or 
dooms  the  writer.  History,  which  always 
sends  great  men  in  groups,  gave  us  Emerson 
by  whom  to  test  the  intellectual  qualities  of 
Parker.  They  cooperated  in  their  work  from 
the  beginning,  but  not  in  the  same  mutual  re- 


THEODORE    PARKER  55 

lation  as  now ;  in  looking  back  over  the  rich 
volumes  of  the  "  Dial,"  the  reader  now  passes 
by  the  contributions  of  Parker  to  glean  every 
sentence  of  Emerson's,  but  we  have  the  latter's 
authority  for  the  fact  that  it  was  the  former's 
articles  which  originally  sold  the  numbers.  In 
tellectually,  the  two  men  formed  the  comple 
ment  to  each  other ;  it  was  Parker  who  reached 
the  mass  of  the  people,  but  it  is  probable  that 
all  his  writings  put  together  have  not  had  so  pro 
found  an  influence  on  the  intellectual  leaders 
of  the  nation  as  the  single  address  of  Emerson 
at  Divinity  Hall. 

And  it  is  difficult  not  to  notice,  in  that  essay 
in  which  Theodore  Parker  ventured  on  higher 
intellectual  ground,  perhaps,  than  anywhere  else 
in  his  writings,  —  his  critique  on  Emerson  in 
the  "Massachusetts  Quarterly," — the  indica 
tions  of  this  mental  disparity.  It  is  in  many 
respects  a  noble  essay,  full  of  fine  moral  appre 
ciations,  bravely  generous,  admirable  in  the  loy 
alty  of  spirit  shown  towards  a  superior  mind,  and 
all  warm  with  a  personal  friendship  which  could 
find  no  superior.  But  so  far  as  literary  execu 
tion  is  concerned,  the  beautiful  sentences  of 
Emerson  stand  out  like  fragments  of  carved 
marble  from  the  rough  plaster  in  which  they 
are  imbedded.  Nor  this  alone;  but  on  draw 
ing  near  the  vestibule  of  the  author's  finest 


56  CONTEMPORARIES 

thoughts,  the  critic  almost  always  stops,  unable 
quite  to  enter  their  sphere.  Subtile  beauties 
puzzle  him ;  the  titles  of  the  poems,  for  in 
stance,  giving  by  delicate  allusion  the  keynote 
of  each, — as  "Astraea,"  "  Mithridates,"  "  Ha- 
matreya,"  and  "Etienne  de  la  Boece,"  -  —  seem 
to  him  the  work  of  "mere  caprice;"  he  pro 
nounces  the  poem  of  "Monadnoc"  "poor  and 
weak,"  and  condemns  and  satirizes  the  "  Wood- 
Notes." 

The  same  want  of  fine  discrimination  was 
usually  visible  in  his  delineations  of  great  men 
in  public  life.  Immense  in  accumulation  of 
details,  terrible  in  the  justice  which  held  the 
balance,  they  yet  left  one  with  the  feeling, 
that,  after  all,  the  delicate  mainsprings  of  char 
acter  had  been  missed.  Broad  contrasts,  heaps 
of  good  and  evil,  almost  exaggerated  praises, 
pungent  satire,  catalogues  of  sins  that  seemed 
pages  from  some  recording  angel's  book, — 
these  were  his  mighty  methods ;  but  for  the 
subtilest  analysis,  the  deepest  insight  into  the 
mysteries  of  character,  one  must  look  else 
where.  It  was  still  scene  painting,  not  portrait 
ure  ;  and  the  same  thing  which  overwhelmed 
with  wonder  when  heard  in  the  Music  Hall, 
produced  a  slight  sense  of  insufficiency  when 
read  in  print.  It  was  certainly  very  great  in 
its  way,  but  not  quite  in  the  highest  way  ;  it  was 


THEODORE   PARKER  57 

preliminary  work,  not  final ;  it  was  Parker's 
Webster,  not  Emerson's  Swedenborg  or  Na 
poleon. 

The  same  thing  was  often  manifested  in  his 
criticisms  on  current  events.  The  broad 
truths  were  stated  without  fear  or  favor,  the 
finer  aspects  were  sometimes  passed  over,  and 
the  special  opportunity  was  thus  sometimes 
missed.  His  sermons  on  current  revivals,  for 
instance,  had  an  enormous  circulation,  and  told 
with  great  force  upon  those  who  had  not  been 
swept  into  the  movement,  and  even  upon  some 
who  had  been.  The  difficulty  was  that  they 
were  just  such  discourses  as  he  would  have 
preached  in  the  time  of  Edwards  and  the 
"  Great  Awakening ; "  and  the  point  which 
many  thought  the  one  astonishing  feature  of 
the  new  excitement,  its  almost  entire  omission 
of  the  "terrors  of  the  Lord,  "  —  the  far  gentler 
and  more  winning  type  of  religion  which  it 
displayed,  and  from  which  it  confessedly  drew 
much  of  its  power,  —  this  was  entirely  ignored 
in  Mr.  Parker's  sermons.  He  was  too  hard  at 
work  in  combating  the  evangelical  theology  to 
recognize  its  altered  phases.  Forging  light 
ning-rods  against  the  tempest,  he  did  not  see 
that  the  height  of  the  storm  had  passed  by. 

These  are  legitimate  criticisms  to  make  on 
Theodore  Parker,  for  he  was  large  enough  to 


58  CONTEMPORARIES 

merit  them.  It  is  only  the  loftiest  trees  of 
which  it  occurs  to  us  to  remark  that  they  do 
not  touch  the  sky,  and  a  man  must  comprise  a 
great  deal  before  we  complain  of  him  for  not 
comprising  everything.  But  though  the  closest 
scrutiny  may  sometimes  find  cases  where  he 
failed  to  see  the  most  subtile  and  precious  truth, 
it  will  never  discover  an  instance  where,  seeing, 
he  failed  to  proclaim  it,  or,  proclaiming,  failed 
to  give  it  force  and  power.  He  lived  his  life 
much  as  he  walked  the  streets  of  Boston, — 
not  quite  gracefully,  nor  yet  statelily,  but  with 
quick,  strong,  solid  step,  with  sagacious  eyes 
wide  open,  and  thrusting  his  broad  shoulders  a 
little  forward,  as  if  butting  away  the  throng  of 
evil  deeds  around  him  and  scattering  whole  at 
mospheres  of  unwholesome  cloud.  Wherever  he 
went,  there  went  a  glance  of  sleepless  vigilance, 
an  unforgetting  memory,  a  tongue  that  never 
faltered,  and  an  arm  that  never  quailed.  Not 
primarily  an  administrative  nor  yet  a  military 
mind,  he  yet  exerted  a  positive  control  over  the 
whole  community  around  him,  by  sheer  mental 
and  moral  strength.  He  mowed  down  harvests 
of  evil  as  in  his  youth  he  had  mowed  the  grass, 
and  all  his  hours  of  study  were  but  whetting 
the  scythe. 

And  for  this  great  work  it  was  not  essential 
that   the   blade   should   have   a  razor's   edge. 


THEODORE    PARKER  59 

Grant  that  Parker  was  not  also  Emerson ;  no 
matter,  he  was  Parker.  If  ever  a  man  seemed 
sent  into  the  world  to  find  a  certain  position, 
and  found  it,  he  was  that  man.  He  made 
his  great  qualities  seem  so  natural  and  inev 
itable,  we  forgot  that  all  did  not  share  them. 
We  forgot  the  scholar's  proverbial  reproach 
of  timidity  and  selfishness,  in  watching  him. 
While  he  lived,  it  seemed  a  matter  of  course 
that  the  greatest  acquirements  and  the  heartiest 
self-devotion  should  go  together.  Can  we  keep 
our  strength,  without  the  tonic  of  his  example  ? 
How  petty  it  now  seems  to  ask  for  any  fine 
drawn  subtilties  of  poet  or  seer  in  him  who 
gave  his  life  to  the  cause  of  the  humblest ! 
Life  speaks  the  loudest.  We  do  not  ask  what 
Luther  said  or  wrote,  but  only  what  he  did; 
and  the  name  of  Theodore  Parker  will  not  only 
long  outlive  his  books,  but  will  last  far  beyond 
the  special  occasions  out  of  which  he  moulded 
his  grand  career. 


JOHN   GREENLEAF  WHITTIER 

THE  popular  poet  laureate  of  this  country 
passed  away  in  peace  on  September  7,  1892,  in 
the  eighty-fifth  year  of  his  age,  having  been 
born  at  Haverhill,  Mass.,  December  17,  1807. 
This  longevity,  aided  by  numerous  biographies, 
has  made  the  principal  facts  of  his  uneventful 
life  well  known  to  the  public.  Neither  of  the 
careers  which  he  would  fain  have  determined 
for  himself  was  destined  to  be  his.  From  jour 
nalism  as  from  politics  the  farmer's  son  was 
turned  back  to  that  simple  inspiration  of  poet 
which  was  first  recognized  in  him  by  his  neigh 
bor,  the  editor  of  the  Newburyport  "  Free 
Press,"  afterwards  the  editor  of  the  Boston 
"  Liberator,"  William  Lloyd  Garrison.  The 
friendship  of  these  two  men  might  well  have  led 
the  younger,  as  disciple,  to  become  entirely  ab 
sorbed  in  the  agitation  against  slavery,  in  which 
he  did,  in  fact,  for  a  time  do  editorial  service. 
Yet  partly  his  political  and  partly  his  religious 
bias  drew  him  away  from  Garrison  at  the  time 
of  the  schism  in  the  abolition  ranks  growing 
out  of  the  political  and  sectarian  differences, 


JOHN    GREENLEAF   WHITTIER          61 

though  in  after  years  they  came  together  with 
out  bitterness  and  with  their  old  affection. 
Moreover,  the  poet  was  physically  unfitted 

"  to  ride 
The  winged  Hippogriff  Reform." 

He  was  all  his  life  a  victim  of  ill-health,  having 
brought  on  neuralgia  and  headache  by  over 
work  in  the  early  days  of  his  journalism.  For 
many  years  he  could  not  write  fifteen  minutes 
at  a  time  without  a  headache,  and  it  is  certain 
that  his  delicate  health  was  for  almost  all  his 
life  a  drawback  to  continuous  mental  exertion, 
although  care  and  watchfulness  greatly  bene 
fited  his  general  condition  during  his  later 
years.  This  improved  health,  together  with 
other  causes,  produced  in  him  an  increase,  not 
a  diminution,  as  years  went  on,  of  sociability 
and  freedom  of  intercourse.  He  became  more 
frequently  a  guest  at  private  houses,  where 
nothing  but  a  growing  deafness  prevented  him 
from  being  a  most  delightful  companion.  His 
shyness  visibly  diminished  —  a  quality  so  marked 
in  early  life  that  it  sometimes  seemed  a  posi 
tive  distress  to  him  to  be  face  to  face  with  half 
a  dozen  people  in  a  room. 

This  habit  showed  itself  chiefly  in  what  is 
called  society ;  with  men  met  for  political  or 
even  business  purposes  he  was  more  at  home. 
He  was  for  many  years  an  active  politician  (in 


62  CONTEMPORARIES 

1835  and  1836  he  was  a  member  of  the  Mas 
sachusetts  legislature),  and  was  esteemed  — 
though  a  poet  —  a  man  of  excellent  judgment 
in  all  public  matters.  He  was  a  keen  judge  of 
character,  was  perfectly  unselfish,  and  always 
appeared  to  look  at  affairs  more  with  the  eyes 
of  a  man  of  the  people  than  with  those  of  a 
student.  Without  making  any  words  about  it, 
he  seemed  held  by  early  associations  as  well 
as  principle  to  the  point  of  view  of  the  labor 
ing  class.  His  whole  position  in  this  respect 
was  very  characteristic  of  American  life;  had 
he  lived  in  England  and  among  the  social  re 
strictions  of  that  more  stereotyped  society,  he 
would,  perhaps,  have  been  simply  some  Corn- 
Law  Rhymer,  some  Poet  of  the  People.  As  it 
was,  there  was  nothing  to  keep  him  from  full 
identification  with  the  most  cultivated  class, 
and  yet  he  was  always  able  to  remain  in  full 
sympathy  with  the  least  cultivated.  In  this 
respect  he  was  more  typically  national  than  most 
of  our  bards.  His  liberal  attitude  was  aided 
also  by  his  training  in  the  Society  of  Friends. 
Of  this  body  Mr.  Whittier  was  always  a  faithful 
member,  though  never  narrow  or  technical  in 
his  spirit.  In  his  youth  his  anti-slavery  associ 
ations  sometimes  brought  him  into  danger  of 
discipline;  and  he  used  to  say  jokingly  in  his 
later  years  that  the  Society  would  gladly  have 


JOHN   GREENLEAF   WHITTIER          63 

then  put  upon  him,  would  he  but  consent,  all 
the  committee  work  and  the  little  dignities  from 
which  his  position  as  a  reformer  had  excluded 
him  in  his  youth.  He  always  held  to  the  pre 
scribed  garb  so  far  as  the  cut  of  his  coat  was 
concerned,  but  conformed  to  the  ways  of  the 
world  in  his  other  attire.  He  did  not  use  the 
"thee"  to  members  of  his  own  society  alone, 
as  is  the  case  with  some,  but  presented  it  in  his 
intercourse  with  the  world  at  large. 

It  is  difficult  to  say  whether  in  his  life,  as  in 
Irving's,  an  early  romance  led  the  way  to  a 
career  of  celibacy.  A  few  passages  in  his  writ 
ings,  but  only  a  few,  might  bear  this  interpre 
tation,  while  the  view  was  discouraged  by  his 
nearest  kindred.  It  is  certain  that  in  later  life 
he  sometimes  permitted  himself  to  express  re 
gret  that  he  had  never  married,  since  all  his 
tastes  and  habits  were  eminently  domestic.  He 
always  appeared  to  advantage  in  the  society  of 
women.  His  manners  had  all  the  essentials  of 
courtliness  in  their  dignity  and  consideration 
for  others,  and  while  he  had  little  small-talk,  he 
had  plenty  to  say  about  men  and  affairs ;  this 
being  always  said  with  sympathy  and  with 
quaint  humor.  Utterly  free  from  self-esteem, 
he  was  always  glad  to  keep  the  current  of  con 
versation  away  from  himself,  and  might  indeed 
be  said  to  rejoice  in  any  evidences  of  obscurity. 


64  CONTEMPORARIES 

He  was  a  wide  reader  and  had  a  tenacious 
memory,  but  he  spoke  no  language  except  his 
own,  nor  did  he  —  although  he  translated  one 
or  two  simple  French  poems  —  read  much  in 
any  foreign  tongue.  He  never  visited  Europe. 
He  used  to  say  that  in  early  life  he  had  a  great 
yearning  for  travel,  but  that  after  reading  a 
book  about  any  foreign  place,  he  retained  in 
his  mind  a  picture  so  vivid  that  his  longing  for 
that  particular  place  was  satisfied.  Yet,  as 
Thoreau  said  that  he  had  traveled  a  great  deal, 
—  in  Concord,  —  so  Whittier  was  familiar  with 
New  England  and  Pennsylvania,  and  has  done 
far  more  than  any  poet  —  perhaps  as  much 
as  all  other  poets  together  —  to  preserve  the 
legends  and  immortalize  the  localities  of  these 
portions  of  our  country.  It  is  only  necessary 
to  look  through  the  New  England  volumes  of 
Longfellow's  "  Poems  of  Places  "  to  be  satisfied 
of  this.  In  his  treatment  of  legends,  Whittier's 
Quaker  truthfulness  comes  in,  and  he  generally 
produces  his  poetic  effects  while  keeping  close 
to  history.  But  his  great  skill  lay  in  discovery : 
everything  he  found  was  turned  to  account, 
and  he  preceded  even  Hawthorne  in  demon 
strating  that  the  early  New  England  life  was 
as  rich  in  poetic  material  as  the  Scotch. 

Of  his  poetry  it  may  thus  safely  be  said  that 
it  has  two  permanent  grounds  of  fame :  he  was 


JOHN    GREENLEAF   WHITTIER          65 

the  Tyrtaeus  of  the  greatest  moral  agitation  of 
the  age,  and  he  was  the  creator  of  the  New 
England  legend.  He  was  also  the  exponent  of 
a  pure  and  comprehensive  religious  feeling ; 
but  this  he  shared  with  others,  while  the  first 
two  branches  of  laurel  were  unmistakably  his 
own.  His  drawbacks  were  almost  as  plain  and 
unequivocal  as  his  merits.  Brought  up  at  a 
period  when  Friends  disapproved  of  music,  he 
had  no  early  training  in  this  direction  and  per 
haps  no  natural  endowment.  He  wrote  in  a 
letter  of  1882,  —  "I  don't  know  anything  of 
music,  not  one  tune  from  another."  This  at 
once  denned  the  limits  of  his  verse  and  re 
stricted  him  to  the  very  simplest  strains.  He 
wrote  mostly  in  the  four-line  ballad  metre, 
which  he  often  made  not  only  effective,  but 
actually  melodious.  That  he  had  a  certain 
amount  of  natural  ear  is  shown  by  his  use  of 
proper  names,  in  which,  after  his  early  period 
of  Indian  experiments  had  passed,  he  rarely 
erred.  In  one  of  his  very  best  poems,  "  My 
Playmate,"  a  large  part  of  the  effectiveness 
comes  from  the  name  of  the  locality :  — 

"  The  dark  pines  sing  on  Ramoth  hill 
The  slow  song  of  the  sea." 

In  "Amy  Wentworth,"  another  of  his  best,  he 
gives  to  one  of  his  verses  the  unconscious 
flavor  of  an  old  ballad  by  using,  as  simply  as  a 


66  CONTEMPORARIES 

nameless  Scottish  minstrel  would  have  used, 
the  names  at  his  own  door  :  — 

"  The  sweetbriar  blooms  on  Kittery-side 
And  green  are  Elliot's  bowers." 

These  are  the  very  names  of  the  villages  where 
the  scene  was  laid,  and  even  the  Kittery-j/^ 
is  vernacular.  Whittier  sometimes  prolonged 
his  narrative  too  much,  and  often  obtruded  his 
moral  a  little,  but,  so  far  as  flavor  of  the  soil 
went,  he  was  far  beyond  Longfellow  or  Holmes 
or  Lowell.  If  he  lost  by  want  of  ear  for  music, 
the  result  was  chiefly  injurious  in  that  it  im 
paired  his  self-confidence ;  and  where  he  had 
trusted  his  ear  to  admit  a  bolder  strain,  he  was 
easily  overawed  by  some  prosaic  friend  with  a 
foot-rule,  who  convinced  him  that  he  was  tak 
ing  a  dangerous  liberty.  Thus,  in  "The  New 
Wife  and  the  Old,"  in  describing  the  night 
sounds,  he  finally  closed  with  — 

"And  the  great  sea  waves  below, 
Pulse  o'  the  midnight,  beating  slow." 

This  "  Pulse  o'  the  midnight "  was  an  unusual 
rhythmic  felicity  for  him,  but,  on  somebody's 
counting  the  syllables,  he  tamely  submitted, 
substituting 

"  Like  the  night's  pulse,  beating  slow," 

which  is  spondaic  and  heavy  ;  but  he  after 
wards  restored  the  better  line.  In  the  same 


JOHN   GREENLEAF   WHITTIER          67 

way,  when  he  sang  of  the  shoemakers  in  the 
best  of  his  "  Songs  of  Labor,"  he  originally 
wrote :  — 

"  Thy  songs,  Hans  Sachs,  are  living  yet 

In  strong  and  hearty  German, 
And  Canning's  craft  and  Gifford's  wit, 
And  the  rare  good  sense  of  Sherman." 

Under  similar  pressure  of  criticism  he  was  in 
duced  to  substitute 

"  And  patriot  fame  of  Sherman." 

and  this  time  he  did  not  repent.  It  is  painful 
to  think  what  would  have  become  of  the  liquid 
measure  of  Coleridge's  "  Christabel "  had  some 
tiresome  acquaintance,  possibly  "  a  person  on 
business  from  Porlock,"  insisted  on  thus  putting 
that  poem  in  the  stocks. 

Whittier's  muse  probably  gained  in  all  ways 
from  the  strong  tonic  of  the  anti-slavery  agita 
tion.  That  gave  a  training  in  directness,  sim 
plicity,  genuineness ;  it  taught  him  to  shorten 
his  sword  and  to  produce  strong  effects  by  com 
mon  means.  It  made  him  permanently  high- 
minded  also,  and  placed  him,  as  he  himself 
always  said,  above  the  perils  and  temptations  of 
a  merely  literary  career.  Though  always  care 
ful  in  his  work,  and  a  good  critic  of  the  work 
of  others,  he  usually  talked  by  preference  upon 
subjects  not  literary  —  politics,  social  science, 
the  rights  of  labor.  He  would  speak  at  times, 


68  CONTEMPORARIES 

if  skillfully  led  up  to  it,  about  his  poems,  and 
was  sometimes,  though  rarely,  known  to  repeat 
them  aloud  ;  but  his  own  personality  was  never 
a  favorite  theme  with  him,  and  one  could  easily 
fancy  him  as  going  to  sleep,  like  La  Fontaine, 
at  the  performance  of  his  own  opera. 

Few  men  of  limited  early  training  have  brought 
from  that  experience  so  few  literary  defects  as 
Whittier.  He  soon  outgrew  all  flavor  of  pro 
vincialism,  and  entered  into  the  world -wide 
atmosphere  of  literature.  The  result  is  that 
when  he  uses  a  mispronunciation  or  makes  a 
slip  in  grammar,  it  has  the  effect  of  an  over 
sight  or  a  whim,  not  of  ignorance.  Thus  he 
always  accents  the  word  "  romance "  on  the 
first  syllable,  as  in 

"  Young  Romance  raised  his  dreamy  eyes ;  " 

and  in  the  poem  "The  Knight  of  St.  John" 
he  has  this  bit  of  hopelessly  bad  grammar :  — 

"  For  since  the  day  when  Warkworth  wood 
Closed  o'er  my  steed  and  I." 

Yet  these  things  suggest  no  flavor  of  illiteracy. 
A  worse  fault  is  that  of  occasional  dilution 
and  the  reiteration  of  some  very  simple  moral. 
D'Alembert  said  of  Richardson's  novels,  once 
so  famous,  "  Nature  is  a  good  thing,  but  do  not 
bore  us  with  her  (non  pas  jusqiia  V  ennui}" 
Whittier  never  reaches  the  point  of  ennui,  but 


JOHN   GREENLEAF   WHITTIER          69 

he  sometimes  makes  us  fear  that  another  verse 
will  bring  us  to  it ;  and  yet,  when  he  will,  he 
can  be  thoroughly  terse  and  vigorous.  He  is 
always  simple  —  always  free  from  that  turgid- 
ness  and  mixture  of  metaphors  which  often 
mar  the  verse  of  Lowell.  On  the  other  hand, 
he  does  not  so  often  as  Lowell  broaden  into 
the  strong  assertion  of  great  general  maxims. 
Lowell's  "  Verses  Suggested  by  the  Present 
Crisis "  followed  not  long  after  Whittier's 
"Massachusetts  to  Virginia,"  and,  being  printed 
anonymously,  were  at  first  attributed  to  the 
same  author.  Whittier's  poem  had  even  more 
lyric  fire  and  produced  an  immediate  impres 
sion  even  greater,  but  it  touched  universal  prin 
ciples  less  broadly,  and  is  therefore  now  rarely 
quoted,  while  Lowell's 

"Truth   forever   on    the   scaffold,  wrong    forever    on   the 
throne  " 

is  immortal  on  the  lips  of  successive  orators. 

But  while  this  is  true,  it  is  also  certain  that 
there  is  room,  even  in  the  United  States,  for 
such  a  function  as  that  of  poet  of  the  people  ; 
and  here  Whittier  filled  a  mission  apart  from 
that  of  the  other  members  of  his  particular 
group  of  New  England  bards.  The  difference 
was  indeed  ante-natal,  and  affords  a  most  inter 
esting  study.  Emerson,  Longfellow,  Holmes, 
and  Lowell  belonged  more  or  less  completely 


70  CONTEMPORARIES 

to  what  one  of  them  described  well  enough 
as  "  Brahmin  blood,"  representing  traditions  of 
hereditary  cultivation,  if  not  always  of  station 
or  wealth.  Their  ancestors  were  to  a  great  ex 
tent  clergymen  or  lawyers,  gens  de  robe.  With 
the  questionable  exception  of  Father  Bachiler, 
Whittier  had  a  widely  different  ancestry.  But 
here  came  in  a  new  element  of  interest :  since 
he  stood  for  a  race  which  had  a  culture  of  its 
own,  namely,  that  implied  in  "  birthright  mem 
bership  "  of  the  Society  of  Friends.  He  could 
say  for  himself  in  good  faith  what  Lowell  said 
with  less  of  strict  personal  significance :  — 

"  We  draw  our  lineage  from  the  oppressed." 

Nor  was  it  from  the  oppressed  alone,  but  he 
derived  it  from  those  who  had  suffered  in  a 
spirit  so  lofty  and  with  such  elevation  of  pur 
pose  as  to  yield  through  transmitted  spiritual 
influence  many  of  the  results  of  the  finest  train 
ing.  No  one  appreciated  better  than  he  the 
essential  dignity  of  the  early  New  England 
aristocracy  —  he  whose  imagination  could  trace 
back  his  heroine's  lineage  through  the  streets 
of  Portsmouth,  N.  H.  :  - 

"  Her  home  is  brave  in  Jaffray  Street, 

With  stately  stairways  worn 
By  feet  of  old  Colonial  knights 
And  ladies  gentle-born. 


JOHN   GREENLEAF   WHITTIER          71 

"  And  on  her,  from  the  wainscot  old, 

Ancestral  faces  frown  — 
And  this  had  worn  the  soldier's  sword, 
And  that  the  judge's  gown." 

But  what  was  all  this  to  him  who  had  learned 
at  his  mother's  knee  to  go  in  fancy  with  Wil 
liam  Penn  into  the  wilderness,  or  to  walk  with 
Barclay  of  Ury  through  howling  mobs  ?  There 
is  no  better  Brahmin  blood  than  the  Quaker 
blood,  after  all.  It  was,  then,  as  from  kinsman 
to  kinsman,  that  Whittier's  last  verses  were 
addressed  to  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes. 


WHITMAN 

WALT,  or  Walter,  Whitman  was  born  at  West 
Hills,  Long  Island,  on  the  3ist  of  May,  1819, 
and  was  educated  in  the  public  schools  of  Brook 
lyn  and  New  York  city.  He  afterwards  learned 
printing,  and  worked  at  that  trade  in  summer, 
teaching  in  winter.  Later  on  he  acquired  a 
good  deal  of  skill  as  a  carpenter.  For  brief 
periods  of  his  career  he  edited  newspapers  in 
New  Orleans  and  on  Long  Island,  and  in  1847- 
48  he  made  long  pedestrian  tours  through  the 
United  States,  generally  following  the  courses 
of  the  great  Western  rivers.  He  also  made  pe 
destrian  explorations  in  Canada.  His  '  Leaves 
of  Grass  '  was  first  published  in  1855.  During 
the  Civil  War  his  brother  was  wounded  on  the 
battle-field,  and  he  hastened  to  visit  him  in  camp, 
becoming  a  volunteer  army  nurse,  in  which  ca 
pacity  he  served  for  three  years  in  Washington 
and  in  Virginia.  His  experiences  are  recorded 
in  "  Drum-Taps  "  and  other  poems.  Want  of 
rest  and  nervous  strain  brought  on  a  severe 
illness  in  1864,  from  the  effects  of  which  he 
never  fully  recovered.  In  1870  he  published 


WHITMAN  73 

his  "  Democratic  Vistas."  From  1865  to  1874 
he  held  a  government  clerkship  in  Washington. 
In  the  latter  year  he  was  stricken  by  paralysis 
and  retired  to  Camden,  where  he  was  gradually 
recovering  when  the  sudden  death  of  his  mother 
in  his  presence  caused  a  relapse,  and  he  re 
mained  in  a  somewhat  crippled  condition,  though 
his  intellectual  powers  remained  unaffected.  In 
his  prime  Whitman  had  a  magnificent  physique, 
and  to  the  last  his  presence  was  imposing,  his 
white  hair  giving  him  a  most  venerable  appear 
ance  in  his  later  years.  At  times  he  felt  the 
pinch  of  poverty,  but  his  wants  were  few  and 
simple,  and  he  had  friends  who  were  always 
ready  to  contribute  to  the  relief  of  his  necessi 
ties.  Among  his  published  works  may  be  men 
tioned  "  Leaves  of  Grass,"  "  Passage  to  India," 
"After  All,  Not  to  Create  Only,"  "Two  Rivu 
lets,"  "  Specimen  Days  and  Collect,"  "  Novem 
ber  Boughs,"  and  "  Sands  at  Seventy." 

It  was  for  a  long  time  the  curious  experience 
of  Walt  Whitman  to  find  his  inspiration  almost 
wholly  in  his  own  country,  and  his  admirers  al 
most  wholly  in  another.  The  rhythmic  apostle 
of  democracy,  he  had,  in  the  words  of  one  of  his 
stanchest  admirers,  "  absolutely  no  popular  fol 
lowing  "  at  home ;  and  the  gradual  increase  of 
his  circle  of  special  readers,  even  here,  has  been 
largely  among  the  class  he  least  approved  — 


74  CONTEMPORARIES 

those  who  desire  to  be  English  even  in  their 
fads.  The  same  thing  was  true,  years  ago,  of 
"  Joaquin  "  Miller ;  but  while  he  has  gradually 
faded  from  view,  the  robuster  personality  of 
Whitman  has  held  its  own,  aided  greatly  by  his 
personal  picturesqueness,  by  recognition  of  his 
services  as  an  army  nurse,  and  by  that  rise  in 
pecuniary  value  which  awaits  all  books  classed 
by  the  book  venders  as  "  facetiae  "  or  "  curiosa." 
All  this  constituted  a  combination  quite  unique. 
To  many  the  mere  fact  of  foreign  admiration  is 
a  sufficient  proof  of  the  greatness  of  an  Ameri 
can  ;  they  have  never  outgrown  that  pithy  pro 
verb,  the  result  of  the  ripe  experience  of  a 
young  Philadelphian  of  twenty -one,  that  "a 
foreign  country  is  a  kind  of  contemporaneous 
posterity."  But  when  we  remember  that  the 
scene  of  this  particular  fame  was  England, 
and  that  it  was  long  divided  with  authors  now 
practically  forgotten, — with  "Artemus  Ward" 
and  "  Josh  Billings  "  and  the  author  of  "Sam 
Slick,"  -  -  when  we  remember  how  readily  the 
same  recognition  is  still  given  in  England  to 
any  American  who  mispells  or  makes  fritters  of 
English,  or  who  enters  literature,  as  Lady  Mor 
gan's  Irish  hero  entered  a  drawing-room,  by 
throwing  a  back  somersault  in  at  the  door,  —  the 
judicious  American  can  by  no  means  regard  this 
experience  as  final.  It  must  be  remembered, 


WHITMAN  75 

too,  that  all  the  malodorous  portions  of  Whit 
man's  earlier  poems  were  avowedly  omitted 
from  the  first  English  edition  of  his  works ;  he 
was  expurgated  and  fumigated  in  a  way  that 
might  have  excited  the  utmost  contempt  from 
M.  Guy  de  Maupassant,  or  indeed  from  himself  ; 
and  so  the  first  presentation  of  this  poet  to  his 
English  admirers  showed  him,  as  it  were,  clothed 
and  in  his  right  mind.  Again,  it  is  to  be  re 
membered  that  much  of  the  vague  sentiment 
of  democracy  in  his  works,  while  wholly  pictur 
esque  and  novel  to  an  Englishman, —  provided  he 
can  tolerate  it  at  all, —  is  to  us  comparatively  trite 
and  almost  conventional.  It  is  the  rhythmic 
or  semi-rhythmic  reproduction  of  a  thousand 
Fourth  of  July  orations,  and  as  we  grow  less  and 
less  inclined  to  hear  this  oft-told  tale  in  plain 
prose,  we  are  least  of  all  tempted  to  read  it  in 
what  is  not  even  plain  verse.  There  was,  there 
fore,  nothing  inexplicable  in  the  sort  of  parallax 
which  long  exhibited  the  light  of  Whitman's 
fame  at  so  different  an  angle  in  his  own  coun 
try  and  in  England. 

But  while  an  English  fame  does  not  of  itself 
prove  an  American  to  be  great,  —  else  were  we 
all  suing  for  Buffalo  Bill's  social  favor  as  if  we 
were  members  of  the  British  aristocracy,  —  it 
certainly  does  not  prove  that  he  is  not  great ; 
and  it  is  for  us  to  view  Whitman  as  dispassion- 


76  CONTEMPORARIES 

ately  as  if  he  were  an  author  all  our  own,  like 
Whittier  or  Parkman,  of  whom  an  English  vis 
itor  will  tell  you,  with  labored  politeness,  that  he 
has  a  vague  impression  of  having  heard  of  him. 
The  first  distinct  canonization  ever  afforded  to 
Whitman  on  our  own  shores  was  when  Mr. 
Stedman  placed  him  among  the  Dii  majores  of 
our  literature  by  giving  him  a  separate  chapter 
in  his  "  Poets  of  America ;"  and  though  it  is 
true  that  this  excellent  critic  had  rather  cheap 
ened  that  honor  by  extending  it  to  Bayard  Tay 
lor,  yet  that  was  easily  explainable  in  part  by 
personal  friendship  ;  and  it  is  impossible  not  to 
see  in  the  Whitman  chapter  a  slightly  defensive 
and  apologetic  tone  such  as  appears  nowhere 
else  in  the  book.  Mr.  Stedman's  own  sense  of 
form  is  so  strong,  his  instinct  of  taste  so  trust 
worthy,  and  his  love-poetry  in  particular  of  so 
high  and  refined  a  quality,  that  he  could  not 
possibly  approach  Whitman  with  the  predeter 
mined  sympathy  that  we  might  be  ready  to 
expect  from  some  less  cultivated  or  more  impul 
sive  critics. 

There  seems  to  be  a  provision  in  nature  for  a 
class  of  poets  who  appear  at  long  intervals,  and 
who  resolutely  confine  themselves  to  a  few  very 
simple  stage  properties,  and  substitute  mere 
cadence  for  form.  There  was  for  many  years 
an  Ossianic  period,  when  simple  enthusiasts  sat 


WHITMAN  77 

up  at  night  and  read  until  they  were  sleepy  about 
the  waving  of  the  long  grass  on  the  blasted 
heath,  and  the  passing  of  the  armed  warrior 
and  the  white-bosomed  maiden.  Ossian  is  not 
much  read  now,  but  Napoleon  Bonaparte  ad 
mired  him  and  Goethe  studied  him.  Neither 
is  Tupper  now  much  cultivated ;  but  men  not 
very  old  assure  us  that  his  long,  rambling  lines 
were  once  copied  by  the  page  into  extract 
books,  and  that  he  was  welcomed  as  relieving 
mankind  from  the  tiresome  restraints  of  verse. 
It  would  be  a  great  mistake,  doubtless,  to  class 
Whitman  with  Ossian  on  the  one  side,  or  Tup 
per  on  the  other ;  but  it  would  be  a  still  greater 
error  to  overlook  the  fact  that  the  mere  revolt 
against  the  tyranny  of  form  has  been  made  again 
and  again,  before  him,  and  that  without  securing 
immortal  fame  to  the  author  of  the  experiment. 
It  is  no  uncommon  thing,  moreover,  for  the 
fiercest  innovating  poets  to  revert  to  the  ranks 
of  order  before  they  die.  Whitman  abstained, 
through  all  his  later  publications,  from  those  pro 
clamations  of  utter  nudity  which  Emerson,  in 
my  hearing,  called  "priapism/'and  was  far  more 
compressed  and  less  simply  enumerative  than 
when  he  began.  True  poetry  is  not  merely  the 
putting  of  thoughts  into  words,  but  the  putting 
of  the  best  thoughts  into  the  best  words  ;  it 
secures  for  us  what  Ruskin  calls  "the  perfec- 


78  CONTEMPORARIES 

tion  and  precision  of  the  instantaneous  line." 
It  fires  a  rifle-bullet  instead  of  a  shower  of  bird- 
shot  ;  it  culls  the  very  best  phrase  out  of  lan 
guage,  instead  of  throwing  a  dozen  epithets  to 
see  if  one  may  chance  to  stick.  For  example, 
Emerson  centres  his  "  Problem  "  in  "a  cowled 
churchman;"  Browning  singles  out  an  indi 
vidual  bishop  or  rabbi,  as  the  case  may  be  ;  but 
Whitman  enumerates  "priests  on  the  earth, 
oracles,  sacrificers,  brahmins,  sabians,  llamas, 
monks,  muftis,  exhorters."  In  "  The  Song  of  the 
Broad- Axe  "  there  are  nineteen  successive  lines 
beginning  with  the  word  "  Where ;  "  in  "  Salut 
au  Monde  !  "  eighteen  beginning  with  "  I  see." 
In  "I  sing  the  body  electric,"  he  specifies  in 
detail  "Wrists  and  wrist -joints,  hand,  palm, 
knuckles,  thumb,  forefinger,  finger-joints,  finger 
nails,"  with  thirteen  more  lines  of  just  such 
minutiae.  In  the  same  poem  he  explains  that 
he  wishes  his  verses  to  be  regarded  as  "  Man's, 
woman's,  child's,  youth's,  wife's,  husband's, 
mother's,  father's,  young  man's,  young  woman's 
poems."  This  is  like  bringing  home  a  sackful 
of  pebbles  from  the  beach  and  asking  you  to 
admire  the  collected  heap  as  a  fine  sea  view. 
But  it  is  to  be  noticed  that  these  follies  diminish 
in  his  later  works  :  the  lines  grow  shorter ;  and 
though  he  does  not  acquiesce  in  rhyme,  he  oc 
casionally  accepts  a  rhythm  so  well  defined  that 


WHITMAN  79 

it  may  be  called  conventional,  as  in  the  fine 
verses  entitled  "  Barest  thou  now,  O  Soul  ? " 
And  it  is  a  fact  which  absolutely  overthrows 
the  whole  theory  of  poetic  structure  or  struc- 
turelessness  implied  in  Whitman's  volumes, 
that  his  warmest  admirers  usually  place  first 
among  his  works  the  poem  on  Lincoln's  death, 
"My  Captain,"  which  comes  so  near  to  recog 
nized  poetic  methods  that  it  actually  falls  into 
rhyme. 

Whitman  can  never  be  classed,  as  Spinoza 
was  by  Schleiermacher,  among  "God-intoxi 
cated  "  men ;  but  he  was  early  inebriated  with 
two  potent  draughts  —  himself  and  his  coun- 
try:- 

"  One's  self  I  sing,  a  simple  separate  person, 
Yet  utter  the  word  Democratic,  the  word,  En  Masse." 

With  these  words  his  collected  poems  open, 
and  to  these  he  has  always  been  true.  They 
have  brought  with  them  a  certain  access  of 
power,  and  they  have  also  implied  weakness ; 
on  the  personal  side  leading  to  pruriency  and 
on  the  national  side  to  rant.  For  some  reason 
or  other  our  sexual  nature  is  so  ordained  that  it 
is  very  hard  for  a  person  to  dwell  much  upon 
it,  even  for  noble  and  generous  purposes,  with 
out  developing  a  tendency  to  morbidness ;  the 
lives  of  philanthropists  and  reformers  have 
sometimes  shown  this ;  and  when  one  insists  on 


8o  CONTEMPORARIES 

this  part  of  our  nature  for  purposes  of  self- 
glorification,  the  peril  is  greater.  Whitman 
did  not  escape  the  danger ;  it  is  something  that 
he  outgrew  it ;  and  it  is  possible  that  if  let 
entirely  alone,  which  could  hardly  be  expected, 
he  might  have  dropped  "  Children  of  Adam," 
and  some  of  the  more  nauseous  passages  in 
other  effusions,  from  his  published  works. 
One  thing  which  has  always  accentuated  the 
seeming  grossness  of  the  sensual  side  of  his 
poems  has  been  the  entire  absence  of  that 
personal  and  ideal  side  of  passion  which  alone 
can  elevate  and  dignify  it.  Probably  no  poet 
of  equal  pretensions  was  ever  so  entirely  want 
ing  in  the  sentiment  of  individual  love  for  wo 
man  ;  not  only  has  he  given  us  no  love-poem, 
in  the  ordinary  use  of  that  term,  but  it  is  as 
difficult  to  conceive  of  his  writing  one  as  of  his 
chanting  a  serenade  beneath  the  window  of  his 
mistress.  His  love  is  the  blunt,  undisguised 
attraction  of  sex  to  sex ;  and  whether  this  appe 
tite  is  directed  towards  a  goddess  or  a  street 
walker,  a  Queensberry  or  a  handmaid,  is  to  him 
absolutely  unimportant.  This  not  only  sepa 
rates  him  from  the  poets  of  thoroughly  ideal 
emotion,  like  Poe,  but  from  those,  like  Rossetti, 
whose  passion,  though  it  may  incarnate  itself  in 
the  body,  has  its  sources  in  the  soul. 


WHITMAN  81 

As  time  went  on,  this  less  pleasing  aspect  be 
came  softened ;  his  antagonisms  were  disarmed 
by  applauses ;  although  this  recognition  some 
times  took  a  form  so  extreme  and  adulatory 
that  it  obstructed  his  path  to  that  simple  and 
unconscious  life  which  he  always  preached  but 
could  not  quite  be  said  to  practice.  No  one 
can  be  said  to  lead  a  noble  life  who  writes  puffs 
of  himself  and  offers  them  to  editors,  or  who 
borrows  money  of  men  as  poor  as  himself  and 
fails  to  repay  it.  Yet  his  career  purified  itself, 
as  many  careers  do,  in  the  alembic  of  years, 
and  up  to  the  time  of  his  death  (March  26, 
1892)  he  gained  constantly  both  in  friends  and 
in  readers.  Intellectually  speaking,  all  critics 
now  admit  that  he  shows  in  an  eminent  degree 
that  form  of  the  ideal  faculty  which  Emerson 
conceded  to  Margaret  Fuller  —  he  has  "lyric 
glimpses."  Rarely  constructing  anything,  he 
is  yet  singularly  gifted  in  phrases,  in  single 
cadences,  in  casual  wayward  strains  as  from  an 
^Eolian  harp.  It  frequently  happens  that  the 
titles  or  catch-words  of  his  poems  are  better 
than  the  poems  themselves ;  as  we  sometimes 
hear  it  said  in  praise  of  a  clergyman  that  he 
has  beautiful  texts.  "  Proud  Music  of  the 
Storm,"  "When  Lilacs  Last  in  the  Door-yard 
Bloomed,"  and  others,  will  readily  occur  to 
memory.  Often,  on  the  other  hand,  they  are 


82  CONTEMPORARIES 

inflated,  as  "  Chanting  the  Square  Deific, "  or 
affected  and  feeble,  as  "  Eidolons."  One  of 
the  most  curiously  un-American  traits  in  a  poet 
professedly  so  national  is  his  way  of  interlard 
ing  foreign,  and  especially  French,  words  to  a 
degree  that  recalls  the  fashionable  novels  of 
the  last  generation,  and  gives  an  incongruous 
effect  comparable  only  to  Theodore  Parker's 
description  of  an  African  chief  seen  by  some 
one  at  Sierra  Leone,  —  "  With  the  exception  of 
a  dress-coat,  his  Majesty  was  as  naked  as  a 
pestle."  In  the  opening  lines,  already  quoted 
from  one  of  his  collected  volumes  (ed.  1881), 
Whitman  defines  "the  word  Democratic,  the 
word  En  Masse ; "  and  everywhere  French 
phrases  present  themselves.  The  vast  sublim 
ity  of  night  on  the  prairies  only  suggests  to  him 
"how  plenteous!  how  spiritual!  how  rSsumt" 
whatever  that  may  mean  ;  he  talks  of  "  Melange 
mine  own,  the  seen  and  the  unseen ; "  writes 
poems  "with  reference  to  ensemble ;  "  says  "  the 
future  of  the  States  I  harbinge  glad  and  sub 
lime ;"  and  elsewhere,  "I  blow  through  my 
embouchures  my  loudest  and  gayest  for  them." 
He  is  "the  extolled  of  amies"  —  meaning  ap 
parently  mistresses ;  and  says  that  neither 
youth  pertains  to  him.  "  nor  delicatesse" 
Phrases  like  these  might  be  multiplied  inde 
finitely,  and  when  he  says,  "No  dainty  dolce 


WHITMAN  83 

affcttuoso  I,"  he  seems  vainly*  to  disclaim  being 
exactly  what  he  is.  He  cannot  even  introduce 
himself  to  the  audience  without  borrowing  a 
foreign  word,  —  "I,  Walt  Whitman,  one  of  the 
roughs,  a  kosmos, "  —and  really  stands  in  this 
respect  on  a  plane  not  much  higher  than  that 
of  those  young  girls  at  boarding-school  who 
commit  French  phrases  to  memory  in  order  to 
use  them  in  conversation  and  give  a  fancied 
tone  of  good  society. 

But  after  all,  the  offense,  which  is  a  trivial 
affectation  in  a  young  girl,  has  a  deeper  foun 
dation  in  a  man  who  begins  his  literary  career 
at  thirty-seven.  The  essential  fault  of  Whit 
man's  poetry  was  well  pointed  out  by  a  man  of 
more  heroic  nature  and  higher  genius,  Lanier, 
who  defined  him  as  a  dandy.  Of  all  our  poets, 
he  is  really  the  least  simple,  the  most  mere 
tricious  ;  and  this  is  the  reason  why  the  honest 
consciousness  of  the  classes  which  he  most 
celebrates,  —  the  drover,  the  teamster,  the 
soldier,  —  has  never  been  reached  by  his  songs. 
He  talks  of  labor  as  one  who  has  never  really 
labored;  his  " Drum-Taps"  proceed  from  one 
who  has  never  personally  responded  to  the  tap 
of  the  drum.  This  is  his  fatal  and  insurmount 
able  defect ;  and  it  is  because  his  own  country 
men  instinctively  recognize  this,  and  foreigners 
do  not,  that  his  following  has  always  been  larger 


84  CONTEMPORARIES 

abroad  than  at  home.  But  it  is  also  true  that 
he  has,  in  a  fragmentary  and  disappointing  way, 
some  of  the  very  highest  ingredients  of  a  poet's 
nature :  a  keen  eye,  a  ready  sympathy,  a  strong 
touch,  a  vivid  but  not  shaping  imagination.  In 
his  cyclopaedia  of  epithets,  in  his  accumulated 
directory  of  details,  in  his  sandy  wastes  of  iter 
ation,  there  are  many  scattered  particles  of 
gold  —  never  sifted  out  by  him,  not  always 
abundant  enough  to  pay  for  the  sifting,  yet  un 
mistakable  gold.  He  has  something  of  the 
turgid  wealth,  the  self-conscious  and  mouthing 
amplitude  of  Victor  Hugo,  and  much  of  his 
broad,  vague,  indolent  desire  for  the  welfare 
of  the  whole  human  race ;  but  he  has  none  of 
Hugo's  structural  power,  his  dramatic  or  melo 
dramatic  instinct,  and  his  occasionally  terse 
and  brilliant  condensation.  It  is  not  likely 
that  he  will  ever  have  that  place  in  the  future 
which  is  claimed  for  him  by  his  English  ad 
mirers  or  even  by  the  more  cautious  indorse 
ment  of  Mr.  Stedman ;  for,  setting  aside  all 
other  grounds  of  criticism,  he  has  phrase,  but 
not  form  —  and  without  form  there  is  no  im 
mortality. 


LANIER 

EMERSON  said  of  Shelley  —  quite  unjustly, 
to  my  thinking  —  that  although  uniformly  a 
poetic  mind,  he  was  never  a  poet.  As  to  all 
the  Southern-born  poets  of  this  country  ex 
cept  Lanier,  even  as  to  Hayne  and  Pinkney, 
the  question  still  remains  whether  they  got 
actually  beyond  the  poetic  mind.  In  Lanier's 
case  alone  was  the  artistic  work  so  continuous 
and  systematic,  subject  to  such  self-imposed 
laws  and  tried  by  so  high  a  standard,  as  to 
make  it  safe,  in  spite  of  his  premature  death, 
to  place  him  among  those  whom  we  may  with 
out  hesitation  treat  as  "  master-singers."  Even 
among  these,  of  course,  there  are  grades ;  but 
as  Lowell  once  said  of  Thoreau,  "  To  be  a  mas 
ter  is  to  be  a  master." 

With  Lanier,  music  and  poetry  were  in  the 
blood.  We  in  America  are  beginning  to  study 
"heredity"  with  renewed  interest,  not  in  the 
narrow  way  in  which  pedigrees  are  studied  in 
England,  but  with  reference  to  the  inheritance 
of  brains  and  high  qualities.  It  is  a  satisfac 
tion  to  know  that  Sidney  Lanier  had  an  an- 


86  CONTEMPORARIES 

cestor,  Jerome,  who  was  probably  a  musical 
composer  at  the  court  of  Queen  Elizabeth ; 
and  that  Nicholas,  the  son  of  this  Jerome,  was 
director  of  music  for  James  I.  and  Charles  L, 
and  was  a  friend  of  Van  Dyck,  who  painted  his 
portrait.  Still  another  Nicholas  Lanier  was  the 
first  presiding  officer  of  the  Society  of  Musi 
cians,  incorporated  at  the  restoration  of  Charles 
II.,  and  four  other  Laniers  were  among  the 
corporate  members  of  this  society.  A  Sir  John 
Lanier  fought  at  the  Battle  of  the  Boyne  and 
fell  at  Steinkirk.  These  facts  are  brought  to 
gether  by  the  Rev.  W.  H.  Ward,  in  his  life  of 
Sidney  Lanier ;  and  he  also  assures  us  that  the 
progenitor  of  the  American  branch  of  the  fam 
ily,  Thomas  Lanier,  came  to  this  country  in 
1716  —  not  very  long  since,  as  American  pedi 
grees  go,  —  and  that  he  settled  with  other  im 
migrants  on  a  grant  ten  miles  square,  including 
the  site  of  the  present  city  of  Richmond,  Va. 
The  father  of  the  poet  was  Robert  S.  Lanier, 
a  lawyer  who  was  still  living  in  1884,  at  Macon, 
Ga.  His  mother  was  Mary  (Anderson)  Lanier, 
a  Virginian  of  Scotch  descent.  The  poet  was 
born  at  Macon  February  3,  1842,  and  died  at 
Lynn,  N.  C.,  September  7,  iSSi. 

In  addition  to  the  musical  tradition,  prevail 
ing  in  the  Lanier  family,  he  is  said  to  have  had 
kindred  inheritances  on  the  "  spindle  side." 


LANIER  87 

Music  was  at  any  rate  his  first  passion.  As  a 
boy  he  taught  himself  to  play  the  flute,  organ, 
piano,  violin,  guitar,  and  banjo;  the  first-named 
instrument  being  always  his  favorite,  or,  per 
haps,  that  of  his  father,  who  "  feared  for  him 
the  powerful  fascination  of  the  violin."  But 
his  parents  rather  dreaded  this  absorption  in 
music,  apparently  thinking  with  Dr.  Johnson 
that  musicians  were  "  amusing  vagabonds." 
The  same  thought  caused  a  struggle  in  the 
boy's  own  mind,  for  he  wrote  at  eighteen  that 
though  he  was  conscious  of  having  "an  extraor 
dinary  musical  talent,"  yet  music  seemed  to 
him  "  so  small  a  business  in  comparison  with 
other  things  "  which  he  might  do  that  he  wished 
to  forsake  the  art.  It  appears  from  the  same 
note-book  that  he  already  felt  himself  called  to 
a  literary  career.  He  was  at  this  time  a  stu 
dent  at  Oglethorpe  College,  a  Presbyterian  in 
stitution,  now  extinct,  near  Midway,  Ga.  Here 
he  graduated  at  eighteen,  with  the  first  honors 
of  his  class,  although  he  had  lost  a  year  during 
which  he  was  a  clerk  in  the  post-office  at 
Macon.  At  Oglethorpe  College  he  came  under 
the  influence  of  Professor  James  Woodrow,  to 
whom  he  always  expressed  great  obligations. 
Lanier  became  a  tutor  in  the  college  on  gradu 
ating,  but  left  his  post  to  enlist  as  a  private  in 
the  Confederate  army. 


88  CONTEMPORARIES 

He  enlisted  in  the  Macon  Volunteers  of  the 
Second  Georgia  Battalion,  the  first  military 
force  which  left  Georgia  for  the  seat  of  war. 
He  remained  in  the  service  during  the  whole 
war,  and,  though  three  times  offered  promo 
tion,  would  never  accept  it,  from  a  desire  to  re 
main  near  his  younger  brother,  who  was  in  the 
same  regiment.  He  was  in  the  battle  of  Seven 
Pines,  that  of  Drewry's  Bluffs,  and  the  seven 
days  of  fighting  about  Richmond,  Va.,  includ 
ing  Malvern  Hill.  After  this  campaign  he  was 
transferred  with  his  brother  to  the  signal  ser 
vice,  because,  as  envious  companions  said,  he 
could  play  the  flute.  In  1863  his  detachment 
was  mounted ;  and  later,  each  of  the  two  bro 
thers  was  detailed  to  take  charge  of  a  ves 
sel  which  was  to  run  the  blockade.  Sidney 
was  captured  and  spent  five  months  as  a  pris 
oner  at  Point  Lookout,  having  concealed  his 
flute  in  his  sleeve  and  keeping  it  always  as  a 
companion.  He  describes  this  period  in  his 
story,  "  Tiger  Lilies ;  "  and  it  was  almost  at 
the  end  of  the  war  that  he  was  exchanged. 
This  event  took  place  in  February,  1865  ;  and 
he  returned  home  on  foot,  having  only  his  flute 
and  the  twenty-dollar  gold  piece  which  had  not 
been  taken  from  him  when  his  pockets  were 
searched,  on  his  capture.  He  reached  home 
March  15,  and  was  dangerously  ill  for  six 


LANIER  89 

weeks,  during  which  his  mother  died  of  the 
pulmonary  disease  which  he  had  plainly  inher 
ited. 

For  nearly  eighteen  months  he  filled  a  clerk 
ship  at  Montgomery,  Ala.,  and  soon  after  vis 
ited  New  York  to  publish  his  novel,  "  Tiger 
Lilies,"  which  had  been  written  in  three  weeks 
during  April,  1867.  It  is  an  extravagant  and 
high-flown  book,  and  with  something  of  the 
exuberance  of  color  that  its  name  implies.  In 
September  of  that  year  he  took  charge  of  an 
academy  at  Prattville,  Ala.,  and  was  married 
in  December  to  Miss  Mary  Day  of  Macon,  Ga. 
His  disease  soon  developed  ;  he  gave  up  his 
school  and  went  to  Macon,  studying  law  with 
his  father,  and  even  practicing;  going  to  New 
York  for  treatment,  to  Texas  for  health,  but 
always  with  declining  strength  and  increased 
longings  for  a  literary  career. 

At  last,  in  December,  1873,  he  took  up  his 
abode  in  Baltimore,  having  made  an  engage 
ment  as  first  flute  for  the  Peabody  Symphony 
Concerts.  Here  he  resided  for  the  rest  of  his 
life,  engaged  always  in  a  threefold  struggle,  for 
health,  for  bread,  and  for  a  literary  career.  To 
his  father,  who  kept  open  for  him  a  place  in 
the  law  office  at  Macon,  he  wrote  (November 
29,  1873)  that,  first,  his  chance  for  life  was  ten 
times  greater  at  Baltimore;  that,  secondly,  he 


90  CONTEMPORARIES 

could  not  consent  to  be  a  third-rate  struggling 
lawyer  for  the  rest  of  his  life ;  and  that  in  the 
third  place,  he  had  been  assured  by  good  judges 
that  he  was  "the  greatest  flute  player  in  the 
world,"  and  had  also  every  encouragement  for 
success  in  literature.  As  a  result  he  stayed, 
breaking  down  at  short  intervals,  but  playing 
in  the  orchestra  winter  after  winter,  —  writing, 
lecturing,  teaching.  From  time  to  time  he 
sought  health  in  Texas,  Florida,  Pennsylvania, 
North  Carolina,  or  Virginia.  He  studied  labo 
riously,  as  his  books  bear  witness ;  and  he  cor 
responded  largely  with  Bayard  Taylor,  always 
friendly  to  unappreciated  genius.  In  Taylor's 
"  Memoirs  "  some  of  these  letters  are  included. 
No  passage  in  them  tells  so  much  of  Lanier's 
earlier  life  as  this  extract,  written  August  7, 
1875:- 

"  I  could  never  describe  to  you  what  a  mere 
drought  and  famine  my  life  has  been,  as  regards 
that  multitude  of  matters  which  I  fancy  one 
absorbs  when  one  is  in  conversational  relation 
with  men  of  letters,  with  travelers,  with  per 
sons  who  have  either  seen  or  written  or  done 
large  things.  Perhaps  you  know  that  with  us 
of  the  younger  generation  in  the  South  since 
the  war,  pretty  much  the  whole  of  life  has  been 
merely  not  dying."  (Memorial  by  W.  H.  Ward, 
xxiv.) 


LANIER  91 

Thus  far  I  have  followed  mainly  the  lines  in 
dicated  by  Mr.  Ward,  his  biographer.  From  this 
time  forth  Lanier's  life  can  be  traced  from  book 
to  book.  His  early  novel  seems  to  have  fallen 
dead,  like  the  early  novels  of  most  people.  Be 
fore  this  time  he  had  published  a  few  poems  in 
Southern  newspapers,  and  then  in  the  "  Round 
Table  "  (New  York) ;  but  the  first  thing  that 
brought  public  attention  to  him  was  a  poem  on 
"  Corn  "  in  "  Lippincott's  Magazine  "  for  Febru 
ary,  1875.  After  this  he  printed  many  poems, 
there  and  elsewhere ;  published  a  volume  on 
Florida  (Philadelphia:  Lippincott,  1876) ;  and  a 
thin  volume  of  collected  poems  (same  publishers, 
1877).  There  are  less  than  a  hundred  pages  of 
this  little  venture,  and  but  ten  separate  poems, 
yet  they  strike  the  whole  range  of  his  ambition, 
his  sensitiveness,  his  dream  of  elaborate  musi 
cal  construction,  —  the  longest  is,  indeed,  called 
"A  Symphony,"-  — and  his  peculiar  effects  of 
rhythm.  They  are  daring,  impetuous,  bristling 
with  strophe  and  antistrophe,  with  dramatic 
appeal  and  response,  but  always  single-minded, 
noble,  pure.  Even  where  the  effect  is  merely 
startling  and  scintillating,  lighted  by  Roman 
candles  instead  of  electric  lights,  there  is  still  a 
signal  purity  in  the  illumination,  and  even  if  the 
flame  goes  out,  no  bad  odor  is  left  behind. 

But  it  was  not  enough  for  him  to  write  poetry ; 


92  CONTEMPORARIES 

he  must  give  to  the  world  his  methods  and  his 
principles.  He  had  theories  of  poetic  art,  and 
it  was  these  theories,  more  than  any  personal 
celebrity,  which  he  desired  the  world  to  accept. 
In  a  fine  letter  to  his  wife  he  writes,  "  It  is 
of  little  consequence  whether  /  fail ;  the  /  in 
the  matter  is  a  small  business.  '  Que  mon  nom 
soit  jtttri,  que  la  France  soit  libre]  quoth  Dan- 
ton."  (Ward's  Memorial,  xxiii.)  To  keep  the 
wolf  from  the  door,  he  compiled  "The  Boy's 
Froissart"  (1878),  "The  Boy's  King  Arthur" 
(1880),  "The  Boy's  Mabinogion  "  (1881),  and 
"The  Boy's  Percy"  (1882),  — all  published  by 
Scribners'  Sons  in  New  York,  and  all  excellent 
bits  of  work,  done  with  enthusiasm. 

He  did  in  these  for  the  mediaeval  and  later 
legends  what  Hawthorne  and  others  had  done 
for  the  Greek  mythology  ;  and  many  a  child 
owes  to  him  all  that  he  knows  of  these  delight 
ful  sources  of  romance.  But  it  was  into  his 
"Science  of  English  Verse"  that  he  was  to 
pour  his  whole  enthusiasm,  and  it  was  this,  in 
connection  with  his  own  poems,  that  was  to 
prove  his  monument.  How  large  its  circulation 
has  been,  I  do  not  know ;  but  the  condition  of 
the  copy  before  me  —  belonging  to  Harvard 
College  Library  —  is  a  sufficient  proof  that  it 
has  had  and  still  holds  a  powerful  attraction  for 
young  students.  By  the  record  of  dates  at  the 


LANIER  93 

end  of  the  copy,  I  find  that  it  was  taken  out 
once  in  1880,  five  times  in  1881,  twice  in  1882, 
four  times  in  1883,  seven  times  in  1884,  six 
times  in  1885,  and  nineteen  times  in  1886,  be 
ing  afterwards  put  upon  the  list  of  books  to  be 
kept  only  a  fortnight,  and  being  out,  the  libra 
rian  tells  me,  literally  all  the  time.  Any  author 
might  be  proud  to  find  his  book  so  appreciated 
by  students  six  years  after  its  first  appearance. 
This  is  no  place  for  analyzing  its  theory,  even 
were  my  technical  knowledge  of  music  sufficient 
to  do  it  justice.  To  me  it  seems  ingenious, 
suggestive,  and  overstrained,  but  it  is  easy  to 
believe  that  to  one  who  takes  it  on  that  middle 
ground  where  Lanier  dwelt,  halfway  between 
verse  and  music,  it  might  seem  conclusive  and 
even  become  a  text-book  in  art. 

Most  of  us  associate  its  fundamental  proposi 
tion  with  the  poet  Coleridge,  who  in  his  "  Chris- 
tabel  "  announced  it  as  a  new  principle  in  Eng 
lish  verse  that  one  should  count  by  accents,  not 
by  syllables.  This  bold  assertion,  which  at  once 
made  the  transition  from  the  measured  strains 
of  Dryden  and  Pope  to  the  free  modern  rhythm, 
was  true  in  the  sense  in  which  Coleridge  prob 
ably  meant  it ;  nor  does  it  seem  likely  that  Cole 
ridge  overlooked  what  Lanier  points  out,  —  that 
all  our  nursery  rhymes  and  folk  songs  are  writ 
ten  on  the  same  principle.  But  waiving  this 


94  CONTEMPORARIES 

criticism  on  Coleridge,  there  is  certainly  no 
thing  more  interesting  in  Lanier's  book  than 
when  he  shows  that,  just  as  a  Southern  negro 
will  improvise  on  the  banjo  daring  variations, 
such  as  would,  if  Haydn  employed  them,  be 
called  high  art,  so  Shakespeare  often  employed 
the  simplest  devices  of  sound  such  as  are  fa 
miliar  in  nursery  songs,  and  thus  produced 
effects  which  are  lyrically  indistinguishable 
from  those  of  Mother  Goose.  (Science,  etc., 
p.  190.) 

But  Lanier  would  have  been  only  hindered, 
rather  than  helped,  by  his  attempts  at  a  science 
of  verse,  had  he  written  his  own  poetry  upon  a 
theory  alone.  In  that  case  there  might  have 
been  applied  to  him  Thoreau's  incidental  epitaph 
on  certain  writers,  "  Thus  do  poets  go  down 
stream  and  drift  into  science  and  prose."  But 
Lanier,  too  true  a  poet  to  do  this,  saves  himself 
on  his  last  page  in  a  brief  chapter  entitled  "  On 
the  Educated  Love  of  Beauty  as  the  Artist's 
only  Law."  Here  he  tersely  explains  that  all 
his  previous  propositions  are  hints  only,  and  not 
laws.  "  For  the  artist  in  verse  there  is  no  law ; 
the  perception  and  love  of  beauty  constitute  the 
whole  outfit  ;  and  what  is  herein  set  forth  is  to 
be  taken  merely  as  enlarging  that  perception 
and  exalting  that  love.  In  all  cases  the  appeal 
is,  the  ear  ;  but  the  ear  should  for  that  purpose 


LANIER  95 

be  educated  up  to  the  highest  possible  plane  of 
culture." 

When  we  turn  from  Lanier's  theory  to  his 
practice  we  find  this  perpetual  appeal  to  the  ear, 
and  see  that  the  application  of  his  own  theory 
is  implicit  rather  than  explicit.  But  we  must 
read  his  poetry  also  in  the  light  of  his  last  prose 
book,  entitled  "The  English  Novel,  and  the 
Principle  of  its  Development."  This  book  is 
made  up  of  lectures  given  before  the  Johns 
Hopkins  University  at  Baltimore,  and  was  never 
revised  by  himself ;  but  the  editor,  in  his  prefa 
tory  note,  states  that  this  work  and  its  prede 
cessor  formed  really  but  successive  "parts  of 
a  comprehensive  philosophy  of  formal  and  sub 
stantial  beauty  in  literature  ;  "  and  as  the  first 
book  dealt  with  the  forms  of  poetic  execution, 
so  this  takes  up  the  substantials,  —  the  selec 
tion  of  themes,  treatment  of  accessories,  and 
the  like,  —  and  gives  us  admirable  incidental 
criticism  of  various  authors. 

Lanier  was  a  critic  of  the  best  kind,  for  his 
criticism  is  such  as  a  sculptor  receives  from  a 
brother  sculptor,  not  such  as  he  gets  from  the 
purchaser  on  one  side  or  the  marble  worker  on 
the  other.  It  is  admirable,  for  instance,  when 
he  says  of  Swinburne,  "He  invited  me  to  eat ; 
the  service  was  silver  and  gold,  but  no  food 
therein  save  pepper  and  salt ;  "  or  of  William 


96  CONTEMPORARIES 

Morris,  "  He  caught  a  crystal  cupful  of  yellow 
light  of  sunset,  and  persuading  himself  to  deem 
it  wine,  drank  it  with  a  sort  of  smile."  But 
the  best  and  fullest  of  these  criticisms  are  those 
made  on  Whitman. 

Whitman  represented  to  Lanier  a  literary 
spirit  alien  to  his  own.  There  could  be  little 
in  common  between  the  fleshliness  of  "  Leaves 
of  Grass  "  and  the  refined  chivalry  that  could 
write  in  "The  Symphony"  lines  like  these  :  — 

"  Shall  ne'er  prevail  the  woman's  plea, 
We  maids  would  far,  far  whiter  be, 
If  that  our  eyes  might  sometimes  see 
Men  maids  in  purity  ?  " 

A  man  who,  with  pulmonary  disease  upon  him, 
could  still  keep  in  his  saddle  as  a  soldier,  could 
feel  but  little  sympathy  with  one  who,  with 
a  superb  physique,  elected  to  serve  in  hospi 
tal  —  honorable  though  that  service  might  be 
for  the  feeble-bodied.  One  who  viewed  poetic 
structure  as  a  matter  of  art  could  hardly  sym 
pathize  with  what  he  would  regard  as  mere 
recitative ;  and  one  who  chose  his  material 
and  treatment  with  touch  and  discrimination, 
could  make  no  terms  with  one  who  was,  as  he 
said,  "poetry's  butcher,"  and  offered  as  food 
only  "huge  raw  collops  cut  from  the  rump  of 
poetry,  and  never  mind  gristle."  (Memoir, 
xxxviiL)  But  it  was  Whitman's  standard  of 


LANIER  97 

what  he  called  "  democracy  "  that  troubled  La- 
nier  most.  "  As  near  as  I  can  make  it  out," 
he  writes,  "  Whitman's  argument  seems  to  be 
that,  because  a  prairie  is  wide,  therefore  de 
bauchery  is  admirable,  and  because  the  Missis 
sippi  is  long,  therefore  every  American  is 
God."  Whitman  uniformly  speaks  of  modern 
poetry,  he  says,  with  the  contempt  which  he 
everywhere  affects  for  the  dandy.  But  what 
age  of  time  ever  yielded  such  a  dandy  as  the 
founder  of  this  school  ?  (The  English  Novel, 
pp.  59,  60.)  Then  he  explains  himself  by  show 
ing  the  attitudinizing  and  self-consciousness  of 
Whitman's  style,  "  everywhere  posing  to  see 
if  it  cannot  assume  a  nai've  and  thinking  atti 
tude,  everywhere  screwing  up  its  eyes,  not  into 
an  eyeglass,  like  the  conventional  dandy,  but 
into  an  expression  supposed  to  be  rough  and  bar 
baric  and  frightful  to  the  general  reader.  .  .  . 
It  is  the  extreme  of  sophistication  in  writing." 
(p.  6 1.)  Elsewhere  again  he  takes  up  Whit 
man's  rejoicing  in  America  because  "  here  are 
the  roughs,  beards,  .  .  .  combativeness,  and 
the  like,"  and  shows  indignantly  how  foreign 
this  all  is  to  the  conception  of  the  founders  of 
the  nation,  —  Washington,  Jefferson,  Franklin, 
and  the  like.  And  he  declares  —  this  man  of 
delicate  fibre,  who  had  fought  through  four 
years  of  wasting  war  —  that  he  finds  "more 


9§  CONTEMPORARIES 

true  manfulness  "  in  the  life  of  many  an  un 
selfish  invalid  woman  than  in  "  an  aeon  of 
muscle-growth  and  sinew-breeding."  He  ends 
with  this  fine  aphorism,  —  "A  republic  is 
the  government  of  the  spirit ;  a  republic  de 
pends  upon  the  self-control  of  each  member ; 
you  cannot  make  a  republic  out  of  muscles  and 
prairies  and  rocky  mountains ;  republics  are 
made  of  the  spirit."  (The  English  Novel,  p. 

55-) 

I  have  followed  out  this  line  of  thought 
about  Whitman,  not  merely  because  it  seems 
to  me  fine  and  true,  but  because  it  draws 
Lanier  into  sharper  expression  and  more  char 
acteristic  statement  than  are  to  be  found  any 
where  else  in  his  works.  That  he  could  criti 
cise  profoundly  one  much  nearer  to  himself 
than  Whitman  is  plain  when  he  comes  to  speak 
of  Shelley,  of  whom  he  has  a  sentence  that 
seems  to  me,  coming  fresh  from  Dowden's  ex 
haustive  memoir  of  that  rare  spirit,  another 
shot  in  the  bull's-eye  of  the  target.  He  says  :  — 

"In  truth,  Shelley  appears  always  to  have 
labored  under  an  essential  immaturity ;  it  is 
very  possible  that  if  he  had  lived  a  hundred 
years  he  would  never  have  become  a  man ;  he 
was  penetrated  with  modern  ideas,  but  pene 
trated  as  a  boy  would  be,  crudely,  overmuch, 
and  with  a  constant  tendency  to  the  extrava- 


LANIER  99 

gant  and  illogical,  —  so  that  I  call  him  the 
Modern  Boy."  (The  English  Novel,  p.  99.) 
Again,  much  of  the  book  is  given  to  a  discus 
sion  of  George  Eliot,  in  whom  he  finds  the 
best  type  of  the  recent  novelist.  He  stops 
short  of  the  later  realism  which  proclaims  its 
own  merits  with  such  honest  frankness ;  and 
his  real  plan  is  to  trace  "  the  growth  of  human 
personality  "  from  ^Eschylus  through  Plato  and 
Aristotle,  then  down  through  the  Renaissance, 
Shakespeare,  Richardson,  and  Fielding,  to  Dick 
ens  and  George  Eliot.  There  he  stops,  but 
the  book  is  full  of  suggestion,  freshness,  life, 
and  manliness. 

It  remains  to  be  said  that  in  Lanier's  poetry 
we  find  the  working  out  of  these  ideas,  but  in 
the  free  faith  which  he  held.  There  is  uni 
formly  a  wonderful  beat  and  cadence  to  them, 
—  a  line  of  a  dozen  syllables  mating  with  a  line 
of  a  single  syllable  in  as  satisfactory  a  move 
ment  as  can  be  found  in  his  favorite  Mother 
Goose  or  in  the  "  patting  Juba "  of  a  planta 
tion  singer.  The  volume  of  his  poetry  is  less 
than  that  of  Hayne,  but  its  wealth  and  depth 
is  greater.  Having  spent  so  much  of  his  life 
in  playing  the  flute  in  an  orchestra,  he  has  also 
an  ear  for  the  distribution  of  instruments,  and 
this  gives  him  a  desire  for  the  antiphonal,  for 
introducing  an  answer  or  echo  or  compensating 


ioo  CONTEMPORARIES 

note.  In  the  poem  that  most  arrested  atten 
tion,  —  the  "  Cantata  "  at  the  opening  of  the 
Philadelphia  Exposition,  —  this  characteristic 
was  so  developed  as  to  give  an  effect  of  exag 
geration  and  almost  of  grotesqueness,  which 
was,  however,  so  relieved  by  the  music  that  the 
impression  soon  passed  away.  But  in  his  de 
scription  of  sunrise  in  the  first  of  his  hymns 
of  the  marshes  he  puts  not  merely  such  a 
wealth  of  outdoor  observation  as  makes  even 
Thoreau  seem  thin  and  arid,  but  combines  with 
it  a  roll  and  range  of  rhythm  such  as  Lowell's 
"  Commemoration  Ode  "  cannot  equal,  and  only 
some  of  Browning's  early  ocean  cadences  can 
surpass.  There  are  inequalities  in  the  poem, 
little  spasmodic  phrases  here  and  there,  or 
fancies  pressed  too  hard,  —  he  wrote  it,  poor 
fellow,  when  far  gone  in  his  last  illness,  with 
his  pulse  at  one  hundred  and  four  degrees,  and 
when  unable  to  raise  his  food  to  his  mouth,  — 
but  the  same  is  true  of  Keats's  great  frag 
ments,  and  there  are  lines  and  phrases  of  La 
nier' s  that  are  not  excelled  in  "Endymion," 
and  perhaps  not  in  "  Hyperion." 

It  was  a  piece  of  good  fortune  for  his  fame  — 
or  rather,  perhaps,  a  service  won  by  his  own  high 
merits  —  that  Lanier  secured  a  biographer  and 
editor  so  admirably  equipped  as  Mr.  W.  H.  Ward. 
All  that  Lanier  did,  afforded  merely  a  glimpse 


LANIER  101 

of  what  he  might  have  done,  had  health  and 
time  been  given  him,  but  these  were  not  given, 
and  his  literary  monument  remains  unfinished. 
He  died  of  consumption  at  Baltimore,  at^he 
age  of  thirty-nine,  September  7,  1881,  leaving 
a  wife  and  four  boys.  His  work  will  long  live 
as  that  of  the  Sir  Galahad  among  our  Ameri 
can  poets. 


AN     EVENING     WITH     MRS.      HAW 
THORNE 

THE  news  of  Mrs.  Hawthorne's  death  re 
minded  me  of  a  happy  evening  spent  beneath 
the  roof  of  that  most  gracious  and  lovable 
woman,  at  a  time  when  for  me  to  visit  Haw 
thorne's  house  was  to  make  a  pilgrimage  to  a 
shrine.  I  will  not  dwell  on  the  more  private 
and  personal  interests  of  the  occasion,  but  I  re 
member  that  in  approaching  the  house  I  thought 
of  Keats' s  fine  description  of  his  visit  to  the 
home  of  Burns,  when  he  "felt  as  if  he  were 
going  to  a  tournament." 

Beginning  with  some  such  emotion,  I  felt 
very  rich  that  evening  when  Mrs.  Hawthorne 
put  into  my  hand  several  volumes  of  those 
diaries  which  carry  us  so  near  the  heart  of  this 
great  writer.  As  I  reverently  opened  one,  it 
seemed  a  singular  Sortes  Virgiliance  that  my 
eye  should  first  fall  upon  this  passage ,  "  I  am 
more  an  Abolitionist  in  feeling  than  in  princi 
ple."  It  was  in  a  description  of  some  festival 
day  in  Maine,  when  Hawthorne's  keen  eye  had 
noted  the  neat  looks  and  courteous  demeanor 


AN  EVENING  WITH  MRS.  HAWTHORNE  103 

of  a  party  of  colored  people.  It  removed  at 
once  the  slight  barrier  by  which  the  suspicious 
conscience  of  a  reformer  had  seemed  to  sepa 
rate  me  from  him.  I  had  seen  him  but  twice, 
-remotely,  as  a  boy  looks  at  a  celebrated 
man,  —  but  it  had  always  been  painful  to  me 
that  he,  alone  among  the  prominent  literary 
men  of  New  England,  should  be  persistently 
arrayed  on  what  seemed  to  me  the  wrong  side. 
From  that  moment  I  convinced  myself  that 
his  heart  was  really  on  our  side,  and  that  only 
the  influence  of  his  early  friend  Pierce  had  led 
him  to  different  political  conclusions. 

Then,  I  remember,  Mrs.  Hawthorne  asked 
her  younger  daughter  to  sing  to  us  ;  and  she 
sang  dreamy  and  thoughtful  songs,  such  as 
"  Consider  the  Lilies,"  and  Tennyson's  "  Break, 
break,  break,"  and  "Too  Late."  "It  is  not 
singing,  it  is  eloquence,"  said  afterwards  the 
proud  and  loving  mother,  from  whose  own 
thrilling  and  sympathetic  voice  the  eloquence 
seemed  well  inherited.  Mrs.  Hawthorne  had 
always  seemed  to  dwell  in  an  ideal  world, 
through  her  own  poetic  nature  as  well  as 
through  her  husband's.  I  watched  her  as  she 
sat  on  her  low  chair  by  the  fire,  while  the 
music  lasted ;  her  hair  was  white,  her  cheeks 
pallid,  and  her  eyes  full  of  tender  and  tremu 
lous  light.  To  have  been  the  object  of  Haw- 


104  CONTEMPORARIES 

thorne's  love  imparted  an  immortal  charm  and 
sacredness  to  a  life  that,  even  without  that 
added  association,  would  have  had  an  undying 
grace  of  its  own.  She  having  thus  lived  and 
loved,  gelebt  und  geliebet,  it  seemed  as  if  her 
existence  never  could  become  more  spiritual  or 
unworldly  than  it  already  was. 

After  her  children  had  left  us  for  the  night, 
we  sat  and  talked  together ;  or  rather  I  ques 
tioned  and  she  answered,  telling  me  of  her 
husband's  home  life  and  also  of  his  intercourse 
with  strangers  ;  saying,  what  touched  but  did 
not  surprise  me,  that  men  who  had  committed 
great  crimes  or  whose  memories  held  tragic 
secrets  would  sometimes  write  to  him,  or  would 
even  come  great  distances  to  see  him,  and  unbur 
den  their  souls.  This  was  after  the  publication 
of  the  "  Scarlet  Letter,"  which  made  them  re 
gard  him  as  the  father-confessor  for  all  hidden 
sins.  And  that  which  impressed  me  most,  after 
all,  was  her  description  of  the  first  reading  of 
that  masterpiece.  For  this  I  have  not  to  rely 
on  memory  alone,  because  I  wrote  it  down,  just 
afterwards,  in  my  chamber,  —  a  room  beneath 
Hawthorne's  study,  in  the  tower  which  he  had 
added  to  the  house. 

She  said  that  it  was  not  her  husband's 
custom  to  sit  with  her  while  he  wrote,  or  to 
tell  her  about  any  literary  work  till  it  was 


AN  EVENING  WITH  MRS.  HAWTHORNE  105 

finished,  but  that  then  he  was  always  impatient 
to  read  it  to  her.  In  writing  the  "  Wonder- 
Book,"  to  be  sure,  he  liked  to  read  his  day's 
work  to  the  children  in  the  evening,  by  way 
of  test.  She  added  that  while  thus  occupied 
with  that  particular  book,  he  was  in  high  spirits  ; 
and  this,  as  I  knew,  meant  a  good  deal,  for  his 
daughter  had  once  told  me  that  he  was  capable 
of  being  the  very  gayest  person  she  ever  saw, 
and  that  "  there  never  was  such  a  playmate  in 
all  the  world." 

But  during  the  whole  winter  when  the  "  Scar 
let  Letter  "  was  being  written  he  seemed  de 
pressed  and  anxious.  "  There  was  a  knot  in 
his  forehead  all  the  time,"  Mrs.  Hawthorne 
said,  but  she  thought  it  was  from  some  pecun 
iary  anxiety,  such  as  sometimes  affected  that 
small  household.  One  evening  he  came  to  her 
and  said  that  he  had  written  something  which 
he  wished  to  read  aloud ;  it  was  worth  very 
little,  but  as  it  was  finished,  he  might  as  well  read 
it.  He  read  aloud  all  that  evening ;  but  as  the 
romance  was  left  unfinished  when  they  went  to 
bed,  not  a  word  was  said  about  it  on  either  side. 
He  always  disliked,  she  said,  to  have  anything 
criticised  until  the  whole  had  been  heard.  He 
read  a  second  evening,  and  the  concentrated 
excitement  had  grown  so  great  that  she  could 
scarcely  bear  it.  At  last  it  grew  unendurable ; 


io6  CONTEMPORARIES 

and  in  the  midst  of  the  scene,  near  the  end 
of  the  book,  where  Arthur  Dimmesdale  meets 
Hester  and  her  child  in  the  forest,  Mrs.  Haw 
thorne  sank  from  her  low  stool  upon  the  floor, 
pressed  her  hands  upon  her  ears,  and  said  that 
she  could  hear  no  more. 

Hawthorne  put  down  the  manuscript  and 
looked  at  her  in  perfect  amazement.  "  Do  you 
really  feel  it  so  much  ?"  he  said.  "Then  there 
must  be  something  in  it."  He  prevailed  on 
her  to  rise  and  to  hear  the  few  remaining 
chapters  of  the  romance. 

To  those  who  knew  Mrs.  Hawthorne's  im 
pressible  nature,  this  reminiscence  of  hers  will 
have  no  tinge  of  exaggeration,  but  will  appear 
very  characteristic,  —  she  had  borne  to  the 
utmost  the  strain  upon  her  emotions,  before 
yielding.  The  next  day,  she  said,  the  manu 
script  was  delivered  to  Mr.  Fields ;  on  the  fol 
lowing  morning  he  appeared  early  at  the  door, 
and  when  admitted,  caught  up  her  boy  in  his 
arms,  saying,  "  You  splendid  little  fellow,  do 
you  know  what  a  father  you  have  ?  "  Then  he 
ran  upstairs  to  Hawthorne's  study,  telling  her, 
as  he  went,  that  he  (and  I  think  Mr.  Whipple) 
had  sat  up  all  night  to  read  it,  and  had  come 
to  Salem  as  early  as  possible  in  the  morning. 
She  did  not  go  upstairs,  but  soon  her  husband 
came  down,  with  fire  in  his  eyes,  and  walked 
about  the  room,  a  different  man. 


AN  EVENING  WITH  MRS.  HAWTHORNE  107 

I  have  hesitated  whether  to  print  this  brief 
narrative ;  and  yet  everything  which  illustrates 
the  creation  of  a  great  literary  work  belongs  to 
the  world.  How  it  would  delight  us  all,  if  the 
Shakespeare  societies  were  to  bring  to  light  a 
description  like  this  of  the  very  first  reading 
of  "  Macbeth  "  or  of  "  Hamlet  "  !  To  me  it  is 
somewhat  the  same  thing  to  have  got  so  near 
to  the  birth-hour  of  the  "  Scarlet  Letter.  "  So 
I  felt,  at  least,  that  evening ;  and  she  who  had 
first  heard  those  wondrous  pages  was  there 
before  me,  still  sitting  on  the  same  low  chair 
whence  she  had  slipped  to  the  floor,  with  her 
hands  over  her  ears,  just  as  the  magician  had 
wrought  his  spell  to  its  climax.  Now  his  voice 
and  hers,  each  so  tender  and  deep  and  with  the 
modulation  of  some  rare  instrument,  have  alike 
grown  silent,  only  to  blend  elsewhere,  let  us 
hope,  in  some  loftier  symphony. 

"  Now  long  that  instrument  has  ceased  to  sound, 
Now  long  that  gracious  form  in  earth  hath  lain, 
Tended  by  nature  only,  and  unwound 
Are  all  those  mingled  threads  of  love  and  pain ; 
So  let  us  weep,  and  bend 
Our  heads,  and  wait  the  end, 
Knowing  that  God  creates  not  thus  in  vain." 


LYDIA   MARIA  CHILD 

To  those  of  us  who  were  by  twenty  years  or 
more  the  juniors  of  Mrs.  Child,  she  always  pre 
sented  herself  rather  as  an  obj  ect  of  love  than  of 
cool  criticism,  even  if  we  had  rarely  met  her  face 
to  face.  In  our  earliest  recollections  she  came 
before  us  less  as  author  or  philanthropist  than 
as  some  kindly  and  omnipresent  aunt,  beloved 
forever  by  the  heart  of  childhood,  —  some  one 
gifted  with  all  lore,  and  furnished  with  un 
fathomable  resources,  —  some  one  discoursing 
equal  delight  to  all  members  of  the  household. 
In  those  days  she  seemed  to  supply  a  sufficient 
literature  for  any  family  through  her  own 
unaided  pen.  Thence  came  novels  for  the 
parlor,  cookery  books  for  the  kitchen,  and  the 
"  Juvenile  Miscellany "  for  the  nursery.  In 
later  years  the  intellectual  provision  still  con 
tinued.  We  learned,  from  her  anti-slavery 
writings,  where  to  find  our  duties ;  from  her 
"  Letters  from  New  York,  "  where  to  seek  our 
highest  pleasures ;  while  her  "  Progress  of  Re 
ligious  Ideas  "  introduced  us  to  those  profounder 
truths  on  which  pleasures  and  duties  alike  rest. 


LYDIA   MARIA   CHILD  109 

It  is  needless  to  debate  whether  she  did  the 
greatest  or  most  permanent  work  in  any  especial 
department  of  literature,  since  she  did  pioneer 
work  in  so  many.  She  showed  memorable  in 
dependence  in  repeatedly  leaving  beaten  paths 
to  strike  out  for  herself  new  literary  directions, 
and  combined  the  authorship  of  more  than 
thirty  books  and  pamphlets  with  a  singular  de 
votion  both  to  public  and  private  philanthropies, 
and  with  almost  too  exacting  a  faithfulness  to 
the  humblest  domestic  duties. 

Lydia  Maria  Francis  was  born  at  Medford, 
Mass.,  February  n,  1802.  Her  ancestor, 
Richard  Francis,  came  from  England  in  1636, 
and  settled  in  Cambridge,  where  his  tombstone 
may  still  be  seen  in  the  burial-ground.  Her 
paternal  grandfather,  a  weaver  by  trade,  was  in 
the  Concord  fight,  and  is  said  to  have  killed 
five  of  the  enemy.  Her  father,  Convers  Fran 
cis,  was  a  baker,  first  in  West  Cambridge,  then 
in  Medford,  where  he  first  introduced  the  article 
of  food  still  known  as  "  Medford  crackers."  He 
was  a  man  of  strong  character  and  great  indus 
try.  Though  without  much  cultivation,  he  had 
uncommon  love  of  reading ;  and  his  anti-slavery 
convictions  were  peculiarly  zealous,  and  must 
have  influenced  his  children's  later  career.  He 
married  Susannah  Rand,  of  whom  it  is  only 
recorded  that  "  she  had  a  simple,  loving  heart, 
and  a  spirit  busy  in  doing  good." 


Iio  CONTEMPORARIES 

They  had  six  children,  of  whom  Lydia  Maria 
was  the  youngest,  and  Convers  the  next  in  age. 
Convers  Francis  was  afterwards  eminent  among 
the  most  advanced  thinkers  and  scholars  of  the 
Unitarian  body,  at  a  time  when  it  probably  sur 
passed  all  other  American  denominations  in  the 
intellectual  culture  of  its  clergy.  He  had  less 
ideality  than  his  sister,  less  enthusiasm,  and  far 
less  moral  courage;  yet  he  surpassed  most  of 
his  profession  in  all  these  traits.  He  was 
Theodore  Parker's  first  scholarly  friend,  and 
directed  his  studies  in  preparation  for  the 
theological  school.  Long  after,  Mr.  Parker 
used  still  to  head  certain  pages  of  his  journal, 
"  Questions  to  ask  Dr.  Francis.  "  The  modest 
"study"  at  Watertown  was  a  favorite  head 
quarters  of  what  were  called  "the  transcen- 
dentalists  "  of  those  days.  Emerson,  Margaret 
Fuller,  Ripley,  and  the  rest  came  often  thither, 
in  the  days  when  the  "Dial"  was  just  eman 
cipating  American  thought  from  old-world  tra 
ditions.  Afterwards,  when  Dr.  Francis  was 
appointed  to  the  rather  responsible  and  con 
servative  post  of  professor  in  the  Harvard  The 
ological  School,  he  still  remained  faithful  to 
the  spirit  of  earlier  days,  never  repressing  free 
inquiry,  but  always  rejoicing  to  encourage  it. 
He  was  a  man  of  rare  attainments  in  a  vari 
ety  of  directions ;  and  though  his  great  read- 


LYDIA    MARIA   CHILD  in 

ing  gave  a  desultory  habit  to  his  mind,  and  his 
thinking  was  not  quite  in  proportion  to  his 
receptive  power,  he  still  was  a  most  valuable 
instructor,  as  he  was  a  most  delightful  friend. 
In  face  and  figure  he  resembled  the  pictures  of 
Martin  Luther,  and  his  habits  and  ways  always 
seemed  like  those  of  some  genial  German  pro 
fessor.  With  the  utmost  frugality  in  other  re 
spects,  he  spent  money  profusely  on  books,  and 
his  library  —  part  of  which  he  bequeathed  to 
Harvard  College — was  to  me  the  most  attractive 
I  had  ever  seen ;  more  so  than  even  Theodore 
Parker's. 

His  sister  had,  undoubtedly,  the  superior 
mind  of  the  two  ;  but  he  who  influenced  others 
so  much  must  have  influenced  her  still  more. 
"  A  dear  good  sister  has  she  been  to  me ; 
would  that  I  had  been  half  as  good  a  bro 
ther  to  her."  This  he  wrote,  in  self-depre 
ciation,  long  after.  While  he  was  fitting  for 
college,  a  process  which  took  but  one  year, 
she  was  his  favorite  companion,  though  more 
than  six  years  younger.  They  read  together, 
and  she  was  constantly  bringing  him  Milton 
and  Shakespeare  to  explain.  He  sometimes 
mystified  her,  —  as  brothers  will,  in  dealing 
with  maidens  nine  years  old,  —  and  once  told 
her  that  "the  raven  down  of  darkness,"  which 
was  made  to  smile,  was  but  the  fur  of  a  black 


112  CONTEMPORARIES 

cat  that  sparkled  when  stroked  ;  though  it  still 
perplexed  her  small  brain  why  fur  should  be 
called  down. 

Their  earliest  teacher  was  a  maiden  lady, 
named  Elizabeth  Francis,  —  but  not  a  relative, 
—  and  known  universally  as  "Ma'am  Betty." 
She  is  described  as  "a  spinster  of  supernatural 
shyness,  the  never-forgotten  calamity  of  whose 
life  was  that  Dr.  Brooks  once  saw  her  drinking 
water  from  the  nose  of  her  tea-kettle."  She 
kept  school  in  her  bedroom,  —  it  was  never 
tidy,  and  she  chewed  a  great  deal  of  tobacco ; 
but  the  children  were  fond  of  her,  and  always 
carried  her  a  Sunday  dinner.  Such  simple 
kindnesses  went  forth  often  from  that  thrifty 
home.  Mrs.  Child  once  told  me  that  always 
on  the  night  before  Thanksgiving,  all  the  hum 
ble  friends  of  the  household  —  "  Ma'am  Betty," 
the  washerwoman,  the  berry-woman,  the  wood- 
sawyer,  the  journeymen-bakers,  and  so  on — 
some  twenty  or  thirty  in  all,  were  summoned  to  a 
preliminary  entertainment.  They  here  partook 
of  an  immense  chicken-pie,  pumpkin-pies  (made 
in  milk-pans),  and  heaps  of  doughnuts.  They 
feasted  in  the  large  old-fashioned  kitchen,  and 
went  away  loaded  with  crackers  and  bread  by 
the  father,  and  with  pies  by  the  mother,  not 
forgetting  "turnovers"  for  their  children. 
Such  homely  applications  of  the  doctrine  "  It  is 


LYDIA   MARIA   CHILD  113 

more  blessed  to  give  than  to  receive  "  may  have 
done  more  to  mould  the  Lydia  Maria  Child  of 
maturer  years  than  all  the  faithful  labors  of 
good  Dr.  Osgood,  to  whom  she  and  her  brother 
used  to  repeat  the  Westminster  Assembly's 
Catechism  once  a  month. 

Apart  from  her  brother's  companionship,  the 
young  girl  had,  as  was  then  usual,  a  very  subordi 
nate  share  of  educational  opportunities  ;  attend 
ing  only  the  public  schools,  with  one  year  at  the 
private  seminary  of  Miss  Swan,  in  Medford. 
Her  mother  died  in  1814,  after  which  the  fam 
ily  removed  for  a  time  to  Maine.  In  1819  Con- 
vers  Francis  was  ordained  over  the  First  Parish 
in  Watertown,  and  there  occurred  in  his  study, 
in  1824,  an  incident  which  was  to  determine  the 
whole  life  of  his  sister. 

Dr.  J.  G.  Palfrey  had  written  in  the  "  North 
American  Review"  for  April,  1821,  a  review 
of  the  now  forgotten  poem  of  "  Yam oy den,"  in 
which  he  had  ably  pointed  out  the  use  that  might 
be  made  of  early  American  history  for  the  pur 
poses  of  fictitious  writing.  Miss  Francis  read 
this  article,  at  her  brother's  house,  one  summer 
Sunday  noon.  Before  attending  the  afternoon 
service,  she  wrote  the  first  chapter  of  a  novel. 
It  was  soon  finished,  and  was  published  that 
year,  —  a  thin  volume  of  two  hundred  pages, 
without  her  name,  under  the  title  of  "  Hobo- 


H4  CONTEMPORARIES 

mok:  a  Tale  of  Early  Times.     By  an  Ameri 
can." 

In  judging  of  this  little  book,  it  is  to  be  re 
membered  that  it  marked  the  very  dawn  of 
American  imaginative  literature.  Irving  had 
printed  only  his  "  Sketch  Book  ;  "  Cooper  only 
"  Precaution."  This  new  production  was  the 
hasty  work  of  a  young  woman  of  nineteen  — 
an  Indian  tale  by  one  who  had  scarcely  even 
seen  an  Indian.  Accordingly,  "  Hobomok  " 
now  seems  very  crude  in  execution,  very 
improbable  in  plot ;  and  is  redeemed  only 
by  a  certain  earnestness  which  carries  the 
reader  along,  and  by  a  sincere  attempt  after 
local  coloring.  It  is  an  Indian  "  Enoch  Arden," 
with  important  modifications,  which  unfortu 
nately  all  tend  away  from  probability.  Instead 
of  the  original  lover  who  heroically  yields  his 
place,  it  is  to  him  that  the  place  is  given  up. 
The  hero  of  this  self-sacrifice  is  an  Indian,  a 
man  of  high  and  noble  character,  whose  wife 
the  heroine  had  consented  to  become,  at  a  time 
when  she  had  been  almost  stunned  with  the 
false  tidings  of  her  lover's  death.  The  least 
artistic  things  in  the  book  are  these  sudden 
nuptials,  and  the  equally  sudden  resolution  of 
Hobomok  to  abandon  his  wife  and  child  on  the 
reappearance  of  the  original  betrothed.  As 
the  first  work  whose  scene  was  laid  in  Puritan 


LYDIA   MARIA   CHILD  115 

days,  "  Hobomok  "  will  always  have  a  historic 
interest,  but  it  must  be  read  in  very  early 
youth  to  give  it  any  other  attraction. 

The  success  of  this  first  effort  was  at  any 
rate  such  as  to  encourage  the  publication  of  a 
second  tale  in  the  following  year.  This  was 
"  The  Rebels ;  or,  Boston  before  the  Revolution. 
By  the  author  of  '  Hobomok.'  '  It  was  a  great 
advance  on  its  predecessor,  with  more  vigor, 
more  variety,  more  picturesque  grouping,  and 
more  animation  of  style.  The  historical  point 
was  well  chosen,  and  the  series  of  public  and 
private  events  well  combined,  with  something 
of  that  tendency  to  the  over-tragic  which  is 
common  with  young  authors,  —  it  is  so  much 
easier  to  kill  off  superfluous  characters  than  to 
do  anything  else  with  them.  It  compared  not 
unfavorably  with  Cooper's  revolutionary  novels, 
and  had  in  one  respect  a  remarkable  success. 
It  contained  an  imaginary  sermon  by  White- 
field  and  an  imaginary  speech  by  James  Otis. 
Both  of  these  were  soon  transplanted  into 
"  School  Readers  "  and  books  of  declamation, 
and  the  latter,  at  least,  soon  passed  for  a  piece 
of  genuine  revolutionary  eloquence.  I  remem 
ber  learning  it  by  heart,  under  that  impression; 
and  was  really  astonished,  on  recently  reading 
"  The  Rebels "  for  the  first  time,  to  discover 
that  the  high-sounding  periods  which  I  had 


1 16  CONTEMPORARIES 

always  attributed  to  Otis  were  really  to  be 
found  in  a  young  lady's  romance. 

This  book  has  a  motto  from  Bryant,  and  is 
"most  respectfully  inscribed  "  to  George  Tick- 
nor.  The  closing  paragraph  states  with  some 
terseness  the  author's  modest  anxieties  :  — 

"  Many  will  complain  that  I  have  dwelt  too 
much  on  political  scenes,  familiar  to  every  one 
who  reads  our  history  ;  and  others,  on  the  con 
trary,  will  say  that  the  character  of  the  book  is 
quite  too  tranquil  for  its  title.  I  might  men 
tion  many  doubts  and  fears  still  more  impor 
tant  ;  but  I  prefer  silently  to  trust  this  humble 
volume  to  that  futurity  which  no  one  can  fore 
see  and  every  one  can  read." 

The  fears  must  soon  have  seemed  useless, 
for  the  young  novelist  early  became  almost  a 
fashionable  lion.  She  was  an  American  Fanny 
Burney,  with  rather  reduced  copies  of  Burke 
and  Johnson  around  her.  Her  personal  quali 
ties  soon  cemented  some  friendships,  which 
lasted  her  life  long,  except  where  her  later 
anti-slavery  action  interfered.  She  opened  a 
private  school  in  Watertown,  which  lasted  from 
1825  to  1828.  She  established,  in  1827,  the 
"Juvenile  Miscellany,"  that  delightful  pioneer 
among  children's  magazines  in  America ;  and 
it  was  continued  for  eight  years.  In  October, 
1828,  she  was  married  to  David  Lee  Child,  a 
lawyer  of  Boston. 


LYDIA   MARIA   CHILD  117 

In  those  days  it  seemed  to  be  held  necessary 
for  American  women  to  work  their  passage  into 
literature  by  first  compiling  some  kind  of  cook 
ery  book.  They  must  be  perfect  in  that  pre 
liminary  requisite  before  they  could  proceed  to 
advanced  standing.  It  was  not  quite  as  in  Mar- 
veil's  satire  on  Holland,  "  Invent  a  shovel  and 
be  a  magistrate,"  but,  as  Charlotte  Hawes  has 
since  written,  "  First  this  steak  and  then  that 
stake."  So  Mrs.  Child  published  in  1829  her 
"  Frugal  Housewife,"  a  book  which  proved  so 
popular  that  in  1836  it  had  reached  its  twen 
tieth  edition,  and  in  1855  its  thirty-third. 

The  "  Frugal  Housewife "  now  lies  before 
me,  after  a  great  many  years  of  abstinence  from 
its  appetizing  pages.  The  words  seem  as  famil 
iar  as  when  we  children  used  to  study  them 
beside  the  kitchen  fire,  poring  over  them  as  if 
their  very  descriptions  had  power  to  allay  an 
unquenched  appetite  or  prolong  'the  delights 
of  one  satiated.  There  were  the  animals  in 
the  frontispiece,  sternly  divided  by  a  dissecting 
knife  of  printer's  ink,  into  sections  whose  culi 
nary  names  seemed  as  complicated  as  those  of 
surgical  science,  —  chump  and  spring,  sirloin 
and  sperib,  —  for  I  faithfully  follow  the  original 
spelling.  There  we  read  with  profound  acqui 
escence  that  "  hard  gingerbread  is  good  to  have 
in  the  family,"  but  demurred  at  the  reason 


Ii8  CONTEMPORARIES 

given,  "it  keeps  so  well."  It  never  kept  well 
in  ours  !  There  we  all  learned  that  one  should 
be  governed  in  housekeeping  by  higher  consid 
erations  than  mere  worldly  vanity,  knowing 
that  "  many  people  buy  the  upper  part  of  the 
sparerib  of  pork,  thinking  it  the  most  genteel ; 
but  the  lower  part  is  more  sweet  and  juicy,  and 
there  is  more  meat  in  proportion  to  the  bone." 

Going  beyond  mere  carnal  desires,  we  read 
also  the  wholesome  directions  "  to  those  who 
are  not  ashamed  of  economy."  We  were  in 
formed  that  "  children  could  early  learn  to  take 
care  of  their  own  clothes," — a  responsibility  at 
which  we  shuddered ;  and  also  that  it  was  a 
good  thing  for  children  to  gather  blackberries, 
—  in  which  we  heartily  concurred.  There,  too, 
we  were  taught  to  pick  up  twine  and  paper,  to 
write  on  the  backs  of  old  letters,  like  paper- 
sparing  Pope,  and  if  we  had  a  dollar  a  day, 
which  seemed  a  wild  supposition,  to  live  on 
seventy-five  cents.  We  all  read,  too,  with  in 
terest,  the  hints  on  the  polishing  of  furniture 
and  the  education  of  daughters,  and  we  got 
our  first  glimpses  of  political  economy  from  the 
"  Reasons  for  Hard  Times."  So  varied  and 
comprehensive  was  the  good  sense  of  the  book 
that  it  surely  would  have  seemed  to  our  child 
ish  minds  infallible,  but  for  one  fatal  admission, 
which  through  life  I  have  recalled  with  dismay, 


LYDIA   MARIA   CHILD  119 

—  the  assertion,  namely,  that  "economical  peo 
ple  will  seldom  use  preserves."  "They  are  un 
healthy,  expensive,  and  useless  to  those  who 
are  well."  This  was  a  sumptuary  law,  against 
which  the  soul  of  youth  revolted. 

The  wise  counsels  thus  conveyed  in  this 
more-than-cookery  book  may  naturally  have  led 
the  way  to  a  "  Mother's  Book,"  of  more  direct 
exhortation.  This  was  published  in  1831,  and 
had  a  great  success,  reaching  its  eighth  Ameri 
can  edition  in  1845,  besides  twelve  English  edi 
tions  and  a  German  translation.  Doubtless  it  is 
now  out  of  print,  but  one  may  still  find  at  the 
antiquarian  bookstores  the  "Girl's  Own  Book," 
by  Mrs.  Child,  published  during  the  same  year. 
This  is  a  capital  manual  of  indoor  games,  and 
is  worth  owning  by  any  one  who  has  a  house 
ful  of  children,  or  is  liable  to  serve  as  the  Lord 
of  Misrule  at  Christmas  parties.  It  is  illus 
trated  with  vignettes  by  that  wayward  child  of 
genius,  Francis  Graeter,  a  German,  whom  Mrs. 
Child  afterwards  described  in  the  "  Letters  from 
New  York."  He  was  a  personal  friend  of  hers, 
and  his  pencil  is  also  traceable  in  some  of  her 
later  books.  Indeed,  the  drollest  games  which 
he  has  delineated  in  the  "  Girl's  Own  Book " 
are  not  so  amusing  as  the  unintentional  comedy 
of  his  attempts  at  a  "Ladies'  Sewing  Circle," 
which  illustrates  American  life  in  the  "  History 


120  CONTEMPORARIES 

of  Woman."  The  fair  laborers  sit  about  a 
small  round  table,  with  a  smirk  of  mistimed 
levity  on  their  faces,  and  one  feels  an  irresisti 
ble  impulse  to  insert  in  their  very  curly  hair 
the  twisted  papers  employed  in  the  game  of 
"  Genteel  lady,  always  genteel,"  in  the  "  Girl's 
Own  Book." 

The  "  History  of  Woman"  appeared  in  1832, 
as  one  of  a  series  projected  by  Carter  &  Hen- 
dee,  of  which  Mrs.  Child  was  to  be  the  editor, 
but  which  was  interrupted  at  the  fifth  volume 
by  the  failure  of  the  publishers.  She  compiled 
for  this  the  "  Biographies  of  Good  Wives,"  the 
"  Memoirs  "  of  Madame  De  Stael  and  Madame 
Roland,  those  of  Lady  Russell  and  Madame 
Guion,  and  the  two  volumes  of  "Woman."  All 
these  aimed  at  a  popular,  not  a  profound,  treat 
ment.  She  was,  perhaps,  too  good  a  compiler, 
showing  in  such  work  the  traits  of  her  bro 
ther's  mind,  and  carefully  excluding  all  those 
airy  flights  and  bold  speculations  which  after 
wards  seemed  her  favorite  element.  The  "His 
tory  of  Woman,"  for  instance,  was  a  mere 
assemblage  of  facts,  beginning  and  ending  ab 
ruptly,  and  with  no  glimpse  of  any  leading 
thought  or  general  philosophy.  It  was,  how 
ever,  the  first  American  storehouse  of  informa 
tion  upon  that  whole  question,  and  no  doubt 
helped  the  agitation  along.  Its  author  evi- 


LYDIA   MARIA   CHILD  121 

dently  looked  with  distrust,  however,  on  that 
rising  movement  for  the  equality  of  the  sexes, 
of  which  Frances  Wright  was  then  the  rather 
formidable  leader. 

The  "  Biographies  of  Good  Wives  "  reached 
a  fifth  edition  in  the  course  of  time,  as  did  the 
"  History  of  Woman."  I  have  a  vague  child 
ish  recollection  of  her  next  book,  "  The  Coro 
nal,"  published  in  1833,  which  was  of  rather  a 
fugitive  description.  The  same  year  brought 
her  to  one  of  those  bold  steps  which  made  suc 
cessive  eras  in  her  literary  life,  —  the  publica 
tion  of  her  "  Appeal  for  that  Class  of  Ameri 
cans  called  Africans." 

The  name  was  rather  cumbrous,  like  all  at 
tempts  to  include  an  epigram  in  the  title-page, 
but  the  theme  and  the  word  "  Appeal "  were 
enough.  It  was  under  the  form  of  an  "  Ap 
peal  "  that  the  colored  man,  Alexander  Walker, 
had  thrown  a  firebrand  into  Southern  society 
which  had  been  followed  by  Nat  Turner's  insur 
rection  ;  and  now  a  literary  lady,  amid  the  culti 
vated  circles  of  Boston,  dared  also  to  "appeal." 
Only  two  years  before  (1831),  Garrison  had  be 
gun  the  "  Liberator,"  and  only  two  years  later 
(1835),  he  was  dragged  through  Boston  streets, 
with  a  rope  around  his  body,  by  "  gentlemen  of 
property  and  standing,"  as  the  newspapers  said 
next  day.  It  was  just  at  the  very  most  dan- 


122  CONTEMPORARIES 

gerous  moment  of  the  rising  storm  that  Mrs. 
Child  appealed. 

Miss  Martineau  in  her  article,  "The  Martyr 
Age  in  America,"  — published  in  the  "London 
and  Westminster  Review"  in  1839,  an^  at  once 
reprinted  in  America,  —  gives  by  far  the  most 
graphic  picture  yet  drawn  of  that  perilous  time. 
She  describes  Mrs.  Child  as  "  a  lady  of  whom 
society  was  exceedingly  proud  before  she  pub 
lished  her  Appeal,  and  to  whom  society  has 
been  extremely  contemptuous  ever  since."  She 
adds  :  "Her  works  were  bought  with  avidity 
before,  but  fell  into  sudden  oblivion  as  soon  as 
she  had  done  a  greater  deed  than  writing  any 
of  them." 

It  is  evident  that  this  result  was  not  unex 
pected,  for  the  preface  to  the  book  explicitly 
recognizes  the  probable  dissatisfaction  of  the 
public.  She  says  :  — 

"  I  am  fully  aware  of  the  unpopularity  of  the 
task  I  have  undertaken ;  but  though  I  expect 
ridicule  and  censure,  I  cannot  fear  them.  A 
few  years  hence,  the  opinion  of  the  world  will 
be  a  matter  in  which  I  have  not  even  the  most 
transient  interest ;  but  this  book  will  be  abroad 
on  its  mission  of  humanity  long  after  the  hand 
that  wrote  it  is  mingling  with  the  dust.  Should 
it  be  the  means  of  advancing,  even  one  single 
hour,  the  inevitable  progress  of  truth  and  jus- 


LYDIA   MARIA  CHILD  123 

tice,  I  would  not  exchange  the  consciousness 
for  all  Rothschild's  wealth  or  Sir  Walter's 
fame." 

These  words  have  in  them  a  genuine  ring ; 
and  the  book  is  really  worthy  of  them.  In 
looking  over  its  pages,  after  the  lapse  of  many 
years,  it  seems  incredible  that  it  should  have 
drawn  upon  her  such  hostility.  The  tone  is 
calm  and  strong,  the  treatment  systematic,  the 
points  well  put,  the  statements  well  guarded. 
The  successive  chapters  treat  of  the  history 
of  slavery,  its  comparative  aspect  in  different 
ages  and  nations,  its  influence  on  politics,  the 
profitableness  of  emancipation,  the  evils  of  the 
colonization  scheme,  the  intellect  of  negroes, 
their  morals,  the  feeling  against  them,  and  the 
duties  of  the  community  in  their  behalf.  As 
it  was  the  first  anti-slavery  work  ever  printed 
in  America  in  book  form,  so  I  have  always 
thought  it  the  ablest ;  that  is,  it  covered  the 
whole  ground  better  than  any  other.  I  know 
that,  on  reading  it  for  the  first  time,  nearly  ten 
years  after  its  first  appearance,  it  had  more 
formative  influence  on  my  mind  in  that  direc 
tion  than  any  other,  although  of  course  the  elo 
quence  of  public  meetings  was  a  more  exciting 
stimulus.  It  never  surprised  me  to  hear  that 
even  Dr.  Channing  attributed  a  part  of  his  own 
anti-slavery  awakening  to  this  admirable  book. 


124  CONTEMPORARIES 

He  took  pains  to  seek  out  its  author  immedi 
ately  on  its  appearance,  and  there  is  in  her  bio 
graphy  an  interesting  account  of  their  meeting. 
His  ow,n  work  on  slavery  did  not  appear  until 

1835- 

Undaunted  and  perhaps  stimulated  by  oppo 
sition,  Mrs.  Child  followed  up  her  self-appointed 
task.  During  the  next  year  she  published  the 
"  Oasis,"  a  sort  of  anti-slavery  annual,  the  pre 
cursor  of  Mrs.  Chapman's  "  Liberty  Bell,"  of 
later  years.  She  also  published,  about  this 
time,  an  "  Anti-Slavery  Catechism  "  and  a  small 
book  called  "  Authentic  Anecdotes  of  Ameri 
can  Slavery."  These  I  have  never  seen,  but 
find  them  advertised  on  the  cover  of  a  third 
pamphlet,  which,  with  them,  went  to  a  second 
edition  in  1839.  "The  Evils  of  Slavery  and 
the  Cure  of  Slavery ;  the  first  proved  by  the 
opinions  of  Southerners  themselves,  the  last 
shown  by  historical  evidence."  This  is  a  com 
pact  and  sensible  little  work. 

While  thus  seemingly  absorbed  in  reforma 
tory  work,  she  still  kept  an  outlet  in  the  direc 
tion  of  pure  literature,  and  was  employed  for 
several  years  on  "  Philothea,"  which  appeared 
in  1836.  The  scene  of  this  novel  was  laid  in 
ancient  Greece.  I  well  remember  the  admira 
tion  with  which  this  romance  was  hailed  ;  and 
for  me  personally  it  was  one  of  those  delights 


LYDIA   MARIA   CHILD  125 

of  boyhood  which  the  criticism  of  maturity  can 
not  disturb.  What  mattered  it  if  she  brought 
Anaxagoras  and  Plato  on  the  stage  together, 
whereas  in  truth  the  one  died  about  the  year 
when  the  other  was  born  ?  What  mattered  it 
if  in  her  book  the  classic  themes  were  treated 
in  a  romantic  spirit  ?  That  is  the  fate  of  almost 
all  such  attempts,  —  compare,  for  instance,  the 
choruses  of  Swinburne's  "  Atalanta,"  which 
might  have  been  written  on  the  banks  of  the 
Rhine,  and  very  likely  were.  But  childhood 
never  wishes  to  discriminate,  only  to  combine  ; 
a  period  of  life  which  likes  to  sugar  its  bread 
and  butter  prefers  also  to  have  its  classic  and 
romantic  in  one. 

"Philothea"  was  Mrs.  Child's  first  attempt 
to  return,  with  her  anti-slavery  cross  still  upon 
her,  into  the  ranks  of  literature.  Mrs.  S.  J. 
Hale,  who,  in  her  "  Woman's  Record,"  re 
proves  her  sister  writer  for  "  wasting  her  soul's 
wealth  "  in  radicalism,  and  "  doing  incalculable 
injury  to  humanity,"  seems  to  take  a  stern  sat 
isfaction  in  the  fact  that  "the  bitter  feelings 
engendered  by  the  strife  have  prevented  the 
merits  of  this  remarkable  book  from  being  ap 
preciated  as  they  deserve."  This  was  perhaps 
true  ;  nevertheless  it  went  through  three  edi 
tions,  and  Mrs.  Child,  still  keeping  up  the  full 
circle  of  her  labors,  printed  nothing  but  a  rather 


126  CONTEMPORARIES 

short-lived  "  Family  Nurse  "  (in  1837)  before 
entering  the  anti-slavery  arena  again. 

In  1 84 1  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Child  were  engaged  by 
the  American  Anti-Slavery  Society  to  edit  the 
"Anti-Slavery  Standard,"  a  weekly  newspaper 
published  in  New  York.  Mr.  Child's  health 
being  impaired,  his  wife  undertook  the  task 
alone,  and  conducted  the  newspaper  in  that 
manner  for  two  years,  after  which  she  aided 
her  husband  in  the  work,  remaining  there  for 
eight  years  in  all.  She  was  very  successful  as 
an  editor,  her  management  being  brave  and  effi 
cient,  while  her  cultivated  taste  made  the 
"  Standard  "  attractive  to  many  who  were  not 
attracted  by  the  plainer  fare  of  the  "  Libera 
tor."  The  good  judgment  shown  in  her 
poetical  and  literary  selections  was  always  ac 
knowledged  with  especial  gratitude  by  those 
who  read  the  "  Standard  "  at  that  time. 

During  all  this  period  she  was  a  member  of 
the  family  of  the  well-known  Quaker  philan 
thropist,  Isaac  T.  Hopper,  whose  biographer 
she  afterwards  became.  This  must  have  been 
the  most  important  and  satisfactory  time  in 
Mrs.  Child's  whole  life.  She  was  placed  where 
her  sympathetic  nature  found  abundant  outlet 
and  plenty  of  cooperation.  Dwelling  in  a  home 
where  disinterestedness  and  noble  labor  were 
as  daily  breath,  she  had  great  opportunities. 


LYDIA   MARIA   CHILD  127 

There  was  no  mere  almsgiving  there,  no  mere 
secretaryship  of  benevolent  societies  ;  but  sin 
and  sorrow  must  be  brought  home  to  the  fire 
side  and  to  the  heart ;  the  fugitive  slave,  the 
drunkard,  the  outcast  woman,  must  be  the 
chosen  guest  of  the  abode,  —  must  be  taken 
and  held  and  loved  into  reformation  or  hope. 
Since  the  stern  tragedy  of  city  life  began,  it  has 
seen  no  more  efficient  organization  for  relief 
than  when  Isaac  Hopper  and  Mrs.  Child  took 
up  their  abode  beneath  one  roof  in  New  York. 
For  a  time  she  did  no  regular  work  in  the 
cause  of  permanent  literature,  —  though  she 
edited  an  anti-slavery  almanac  in  1843,  —  but 
she  found  an  opening  for  her  best  eloquence  in 
writing  letters  to  the  "  Boston  Courier,"  then 
under  the  charge  of  Joseph  T.  Buckingham. 
This  was  the  series  of  "  Letters  from  New 
York  "  that  afterwards  became  famous.  They 
were  the  precursors  of  that  modern  school 
of  newspaper  correspondence  in  which  women 
have  so  large  a  share,  and  which  has  something 
of  the  charm  of  women's  private  letters, — a 
style  of  writing  where  description  preponder 
ates  over  argument  and  statistics  make  way  for 
fancy  and  enthusiasm.  Many  have  since  fol 
lowed  in  this  path,  and  perhaps  Mrs.  Child's 
letters  would  not  now  be  hailed  as  they  then 
were.  Others  may  have  equaled  her,  but  she 


128  CONTEMPORARIES 

gave  us  a  new  sensation,  and  that  epoch  was 
perhaps  the  climax  of  her  purely  literary  ca 
reer. 

Their  tone  also  did  much  to  promote  the 
tendency,  which  was  showing  itself  in  those 
days,  towards  a  fresh  inquiry  into  the  founda 
tions  of  social  science.  The  Brook  Farm  ex 
periment  was  at  its  height ;  and  though  she 
did  not  call  herself  an  Associationist,  yet  she 
quoted  Fourier  and  Swedenborg,  and  other 
authors  who  were  thought  to  mean  mischief ; 
and  her  highest  rhapsodies  about  poetry  and 
music  were  apt  to  end  in  some  fervent  appeal 
for  some  increase  of  harmony  in  daily  life. 
She  seemed  always  to  be  talking  radicalism  in 
a  greenhouse  ;  and  there  were  many  good  people 
who  held  her  all  the  more  dangerous  for  her  per 
fumes.  There  were  young  men  and  maidens, 
also,  who  looked  to  her  as  a  teacher,  and  were 
influenced  for  life,  perhaps,  by  what  she  wrote. 
I  knew,  for  instance,  a  young  lawyer,  just  en 
tering  on  the  practice  of  his  profession  under 
the  most  flattering  auspices,  who  withdrew 
from  the  courts  forever — wisely  or  unwisely, 
—  because  Mrs.  Child's  book  had  taught  him  to 
hate  their  contests  and  their  injustice. 

It  was  not  long  after  this  that  James  Russell 
Lowell,  in  his  "  Fable  for  Critics,"  gave  him 
self  up  to  one  impulse  of  pure  poetry  in  de- 


LYDIA   MARIA   CHILD  129 

scribing  Mrs.  Child.  It  is  by  so  many  degrees 
the  most  charming  sketch  ever  made  of  her 
that  the  best  part  of  it  must  be  inserted  here  :  — 

"  There  comes  Philothea,  her  face  all  aglow, 
She  has  just  been  dividing  some  poor  creature's  woe, 
And  can't  tell  which  pleases  her  most,  to  relieve 
His  want,  or  his  story  to  hear  and  believe; 

"  The  pole,  science  tells  us,  the  magnet  controls, 
But  she  is  a  magnet  to  emigrant  Poles, 
And  folks  with  a  mission  that  nobody  knows 
Throng  thickly  about  her  as  bees  round  a  rose  ; 
She  can  fill  up  the  carets  in  such,  make  their  scope 
Converge  to  some  focus  of  rational  hope, 
And  with  sympathies  fresh  as  the  morning,  their  gall 
Can  transmute  into  honey,  —  but  this  is  not  all ; 
Not  only  for  these  she  has  solace,  oh,  say, 
Vice's  desperate  nursling  adrift  in  Broadway, 
Who  clingest  with  all  that  is  left  of  thee  human 
To  the  last  slender  spar  from  the  wreck  of  the  woman, 
Hast  thou  not  found  one  shore  where  those  tired  drooping 

feet 

Could  reach  firm  mother  earth,  one  full  heart  on  whose  beat 
The  soothed  head  in  silence  reposing  could  hear 
The  chimes  of  far  childhood  throb  back  on  the  ear  ? 
Ah,  there  's  many  a  beam  from  the  fountain  of  day 
That,  to  reach  us  unclouded,  must  pass  on  its  way 
Through  the  soul  of  a  woman,  and  hers  is  wide  ope 
To  the  influence  of  Heaven  as  the  blue  eyes  of  Hope ; 
Yes,  a  great  heart  is  hers,  one  that  dares  to  go  in 
To  the  prison,  the  slave-hut,  the  alleys  of  sin, 
And  to  bring  into  each,  or  to  find  there,  some  line 
Of  the  never  completely  out-trampled  divine ; 
If  her  heart  at  high  floods  swamps  her  brain  now  and  then, 
T  is  but  richer  for  that  when  the  tide  ebbs  again, 
As  after  old  Nile  has  subsided,  his  plain 


130  CONTEMPORARIES 

Overflows  with  a  second  broad  deluge  of  grain ; 
What  a  wealth  would  it  bring  to  the  narrow  and  sour, 
Could  they  be  as  a  Child  but  for  one  little  hour !  " 

The  two  series  of  "Letters  from  New 
York"  appeared  in  1843  and  1845,  and  went 
through  seven  or  more  editions.  They  were 
followed  in  1846  by  a  collection  of  tales,  mostly 
printed,  entitled  "Fact  and  Fiction."  The 
book  was  dedicated  to  "Anna  Loring,  the 
Child  of  my  Heart,"  and  was  a  series  of  power 
ful  and  well-told  narratives,  some  purely  ideal, 
but  mostly  based  upon  the  sins  of  great  cities, 
especially  those  of  man  against  woman.  She 
might  have  sought  more  joyous  themes,  but 
none  which  at  that  time  lay  so  near  her  heart. 
There  was  more  sunshine  in  her  next  literary 
task,  for,  in  1852,  she  collected  three  small 
volumes  of  her  stories  from  the  "  Juvenile  Mis 
cellany  "  and  elsewhere,  under  the  title  of 
"Flowers  for  Children." 

In  1853  she  published  her  next  book,  en 
titled  "Isaac  T.  Hopper;  a  True  Life."  This 
gave  another  new  sensation  to  the  public,  for 
her  books  never  seemed  to  repeat  each  other, 
and  belonged  to  almost  as  many  different  de 
partments  as  there  were  volumes.  The  critics 
complained  that  this  memoir  was  a  little  frag 
mentary,  a  series  of  interesting  stories  without 
sufficient  method  or  unity  of  conception.  Per- 


LYDIA   MARIA   CHILD  131 

haps  it  would  have  been  hard  to  make  it  other 
wise.  Certainly,  as  the  book  stands,  it  seems 
like  the  department  of  "  Benevolence "  in  the 
"  Percy  Anecdotes,"  and  serves  as  an  encyclo 
paedia  of  daring  and  noble  charities. 

Her  next  book  was  the  most  arduous  intel 
lectual  labor  of  her  life,  and,  as  often  happens 
in  such  cases,  the  least  profitable  in  the  way 
of  money.  "The  Progress  of  Religious  Ideas 
through  Successive  Ages"  was  published  in 
three  large  volumes  in  1855.  She  had  begun 
it  long  before  in  New  York,  with  the  aid  of  the 
Mercantile  Library  and  the  Commercial  Li 
brary,  then  the  best  in  the  city.  It  was  finished 
in  Wayland,  with  the  aid  of  her  brother's  store 
of  books,  and  with  his  and  Theodore  Parker's 
counsel  as  to  her  course  of  reading.  It  seems, 
from  the  preface,  that  more  than  eight  years 
elapsed  between  the  planning  and  the  printing, 
and  for  six  years  it  was  her  main  pursuit.  For 
this  great  labor  she  had  absolutely  no  pecun 
iary  reward  ;  the  book  paid  its  expenses  and 
nothing  more.  It  is  now  out  of  print  and  not 
easy  to  obtain. 

This  disappointment  was  no  doubt  due  partly 
to  the  fact  that  the  book  set  itself  in  decided 
opposition,  unequivocal  though  gentle,  to  the 
prevailing  religious  impressions  of  the  commu 
nity.  It  may  have  been,  also,  that  it  was  too 


132  .    CONTEMPORARIES 

learned  for  a  popular  book  and  too  popular  for 
a  learned  one.  Learning,  indeed,  she  distinctly 
disavowed.  "  If  readers  complain  of  want  of 
profoundness,  they  may  perchance  be  willing 
to  accept  simplicity  and  clearness  in  exchange 
for  depth."  ..."  Doubtless  a  learned  person 
would  have  performed  the  task  far  better  in 
many  respects ;  but,  on  some  accounts,  my 
want  of  learning  is  an  advantage.  Thoughts 
do  not  range  so  freely  when  the  storeroom  of 
the  brain  is  overloaded  with  furniture."  And 
she  gives  at  the  end,  with  her  usual  frankness, 
a  list  of  works  consulted,  all  being  in  English 
except  seven,  which  are  in  French.  It  was  a  bold 
thing  to  base  a  history  of  religious  ideas  on 
such  books  as  Enfield's  Philosophy  and  Taylor's 
Plato.  The  trouble  was  not  so  much  that  the 
learning  was  second-hand,  —  for  such  is  most 
learning,  —  as  that  the  authorities  were  second- 
rate.  The  stream  could  hardly  go  higher  than 
its  source ;  and  a  book  based  on  such  very  in 
adequate  researches  could  hardly  be  accepted, 
even  when  tried  by  that  very  accommodating 
standard,  popular  scholarship. 

In  1857  Mrs.  Child  published  a  volume  en 
titled  "  Autumnal  Leaves  ;  Tales  and  Sketches 
in  Prose  and  Rhyme."  It  might  seem  from 
this  title  that  she  regarded  her  career  of  action 
as  drawing  to  a  close.  If  so  she  was  soon  unde- 


LYDIA   MARIA   CHILD  133 

ceived,  and  the  attack  of  Captain  John  Brown 
upon  Harper's  Ferry  aroused  her,  like  many 
others,  from  a  dream  of  peace.  Immediately 
on  the  arrest  of  Captain  Brown  she  wrote  him 
a  brief  letter,  asking  permission  to  go  and 
nurse  him,  as  he  was  wounded  and  among  ene 
mies,  and  as  his  wife  was  supposed  to  be  be 
yond  immediate  reach.  This  letter  she  inclosed 
in  one  to  Governor  Wise.  She  then  went  home 
and  packed  her  trunk,  with  her  husband's  full 
approval,  but  decided  not  to  go  until  she  heard 
from  Captain  Brown,  not  knowing  what  his  pre 
cise  wishes  might  be.  She  had  heard  that  he 
had  expressed  a  wish  to  have  the  aid  of  some 
lawyer  not  identified  with  the  anti-slavery  move 
ment,  and  she  thought  he  was  entitled  to  the 
same  considerations  of  policy  in  regard  to  a 
nurse.  Meantime  Mrs.  Brown  was  sent  for  and 
promptly  arrived,  while  Captain  Brown  wrote 
Mrs.  Child  one  of  his  plain  and  characteristic 
letters,  declining  her  offer,  and  asking  her  kind 
aid  for  his  family,  which  was  faithfully  given. 

But  with  this  letter  came  one  from  Governor 
Wise,  —  courteous,  but  rather  diplomatic,  — 
and  containing  some  reproof  of  her  expressions 
of  sympathy  for  the  prisoner.  To  this  she 
wrote  an  answer,  well  worded  and  quite  effec 
tive,  which,  to  her  great  surprise,  soon  ap 
peared  in  the  New  York  "Tribune."  She 


134  CONTEMPORARIES 

wrote  to  the  editor  (November  10,  1859):  "I 
was  much  surprised  to  see  my  correspondence 
with  Governor  Wise  published  in  your  columns. 
As  I  have  never  given  any  person  a  copy,  I  pre 
sume  you  must  have  obtained  it  from  Virginia." 
This  correspondence  soon  led  to  another. 
Mrs.  M.  J.  C.  Mason  wrote  from  "  Alto,  King 
George's  County,  Virginia,"  a  formidable  de 
monstration,  beginning  thus  :  "  Do  you  read 
your  Bible,  Mrs.  Child  ?  If  you  do,  read  there, 
'  Woe  unto  you  hypocrites,'  and  take  to  your 
self,  with  twofold  damnation,  that  terrible  sen 
tence  ;  for,  rest  assured,  in  the  day  of  judgment, 
it  shall  be  more  tolerable  for  those  thus  scathed 
by  the  awful  denunciations  of  the  Son  of  God 
than  for  you."  This  startling  commencement 
—  of  which  it  must  be  calmly  asserted  that  it 
comes  very  near  swearing,  for  a  lady  —  leads  to 
something  like  bathos  at  the  end,  where  Mrs. 
Mason  adds  in  conclusion,  "No  Southerner 
ought,  after  your  letters  to  Governor  Wise,  to 
read  a  line  of  your  composition,  or  to  touch 
a  magazine  which  bears  your  name  in  its  list 
of  contributors."  To  begin  with  double-dyed 
future  torments,  and  come  gradually  to  the 
climax  of  "  Stop  my  paper,"  admits  of  no  other 
explanation  than  that  Mrs.  Mason  had  dabbled 
in  literature  herself,  and  knew  how  to  pierce 
the  soul  of  a  sister  in  the  trade. 


LYDIA   MARIA   CHILD  135 

But  the  great  excitement  of  that  period,  and 
the  general  loss  of  temper  that  prevailed,  may 
plead  a  little  in  vindication  of  Mrs.  Mason's 
vehemence,  and  must  certainly  enhance  the 
dignity  of  Mrs.  Child's  reply.  It  is  one  of  the 
best  things  she  ever  wrote.  She  refuses  to 
dwell  on  the  invectives  of  her  assailant,  and 
only  "  wishes  her  well,  both  in  this  world  and 
the  next."  Nor  will  she  even  debate  the  spe 
cific  case  of  John  Brown,  whose  body  was  in 
charge  of  the  courts  and  his  reputation  sure 
to  be  in  charge  of  posterity.  "  Men,  however 
great  they  may  be,"  she  says,  "  are  of  small 
consequence  in  comparison  with  principles,  and 
the  principle  for  which  John  Brown  died  is  the 
question  at  issue  between  us." 

She  accordingly  proceeds  to  discuss  this  ques 
tion,  first  scripturally  (following  the  lead  of  her 
assailant),  then  on  general  principles  ;  and  gives 
one  of  her  usual  clear  summaries  of  the  whole 
argument.  Now  that  the  excitements  of  the 
hour  have  passed,  the  spirit  of  her  whole  state 
ment  must  claim  just  praise.  The  series  of 
letters  was  published  in  pamphlet  form  in  1 860, 
and  secured  a  wider  circulation  than  anything 
she  ever  wrote,  embracing  some  three  hundred 
thousand  copies.  In  return  she  received  many 
private  letters  from  the  slave  States,  mostly 
anonymous,  and  often  grossly  insulting. 


136  CONTEMPORARIES 

Having  gained  so  good  a  hearing,  she  fol 
lowed  up  her  opportunity.  During  the  same 
year  she  printed  two  small  tracts,  "  The  Patri 
archal  Institution  "  and  "  The  Duty  of  Disobe 
dience  to  the  Fugitive  Slave  Law,"  and  then 
one  of  her  most  elaborate  compilations,  enti 
tled  "  The  Right  Way  the  Safe  Way,  proved 
by  Emancipation  in  the  British  West  Indies 
and  Elsewhere."  This  shows  the  same  syste 
matic  and  thorough  habit  of  mind  with  its  pre 
decessors  ;  and  this  business-like  way  of  dealing 
with  facts  is  hard  to  reconcile  with  the  dreamy 
and  almost  uncontrolled  idealism  which  she 
elsewhere  shows.  In  action,  too,  she  has  usu 
ally  shown  the  same  practical  thoroughness, 
and  in  case  of  this  very  book  forwarded  copies 
at  her  own  expense  to  fifteen  hundred  persons 
in  the  slave  States. 

In  1864  she  published  "  Looking  towards 
Sunset,"  —  a  very  agreeable  collection  of  prose 
and  verse,  by  various  authors,  all  bearing  upon 
the  aspects  of  old  age.  This  was  another  of 
those  new  directions  of  literary  activity  with 
which  she  so  often  surprised  her  friends.  The 
next  year  brought  still  another  in  the  "  Freed- 
men's  Book,"  —  a  collection  of  short  tales  and 
sketches  suited  to  the  mental  condition  of  the 
Southern  freedmen,  and  published  for  their 
benefit.  It  was  sold  for  that  purpose  at  cost, 


LYDIA   MARIA   CHILD  137 

and    a    good    many    copies    were    distributed 
through  teachers  and  missionaries. 

Her  last  publication,  and  perhaps  (if  one 
might  venture  to  guess)  her  favorite  among  the 
whole  series,  appeared  in  1867,  —  "A  Romance 
of  the  Republic."  It  was  received  with  great 
cordiality,  and  is  in  some  respects  her  best  fic 
titious  work.  The  scenes  are  laid  chiefly  at 
the  South,  where  she  has  given  the  local  color 
ing  in  a  way  really  remarkable  for  one  who 
never  visited  that  region,  while  the  results  of 
slavery  are  painted  with  the  thorough  know 
ledge  of  one  who  had  devoted  a  lifetime  to  their 
study.  The  leading  characters  are  of  that  type 
which  has  since  become  rather  common  in  fic 
tion,  because  American  society  affords  none 
whose  situation  is  so  dramatic,  —  young  quad 
roons  educated  to  a  high  grade  of  culture,  and 
sold  as  slaves  after  all.  All  the  scenes  are 
handled  in  a  broad  spirit  of  humanity,  and  be 
tray  no  trace  of  that  subtle  sentiment  of  caste 
which  runs  through  and  through  some  novels 
written  ostensibly  to  oppose  caste.  The  char 
acterization  is  good,  and  the  events  interesting 
and  vigorously  handled.  The  defect  of  the 
book  is  a  common  one,  —  too  large  a  frame 
work,  too  many  vertebra  to  the  plot.  Even 
the  established  climax  of  a  wedding  is  a  safer 
experiment  than  to  prolong  the  history  into 


138  CONTEMPORARIES 

the  second  generation,  as  here.  The  first  two 
thirds  of  the  story  would  have  been  more  effec 
tive  without  the  conclusion.  But  it  will  always 
possess  value  as  one  of  the  few  really  able  de 
lineations  of  slavery  in  fiction,  and  the  author 
may  well  look  back  with  pride  on  this  final 
offering  upon  that  altar  of  liberty  where  so 
much  of  her  life  had  been  already  laid. 

In  later  life  Mrs.  Child  left  not  only  the 
busy  world  of  New  York,  but  almost  the  world 
of  society,  and  took  up  her  abode  (after  a  short 
residence  at  West  Newton)  in  the  house  be 
queathed  to  her  by  her  father,  at  Wayland, 
Mass.  In  that  quiet  village  she  and  her  hus 
band  peacefully  dwelt,  avoiding  even,  friend 
ship's  intrusion.  Times  of  peace  have  no  his 
torian,  and  the  later  career  of  Mrs.  Child  had 
few  of  what  the  world  calls  events.  Her  do 
mestic  labors,  her  studies,  her  flowers,  and  her 
few  guests  kept  her  ever  busy.  She  had  never 
had  children  of  her  own, — though,  as  some 
one  has  said,  she  had  a  great  many  of  other 
people's,  —  but  more  than  one  whom  she  had 
befriended  came  to  dwell  with  her  after  her  re 
tirement,  and  she  came  forth  sometimes  to  find 
new  beneficiaries.  But  for  many  of  her  kind 
nesses  she  did  not  need  to  leave  home,  since 
they  were  given  in  the  form  least  to  be  ex 
pected  from  a  literary  woman,  —  that  of  pecun- 


LYDIA   MARIA  CHILD  139 

iary  bounty.  Few  households  in  the  country 
contributed  on  a  scale  so  very  liberal,  in  pro 
portion  to  their  means. 

One  published  letter,  however,  may  serve  as 
a  sample  of  many.  It  was  addressed  to  an 
Anti-Slavery  Festival  at  Boston,  and  not  only 
shows  the  mode  of  action  adopted  by  Mr.  and 
Mrs.  Child,  but  their  latest  opinions  as  to  pub 
lic  affairs :  — 

WAYLAND,  January  i,  1868. 

DEAR  FRIEND  PHILLIPS,  —  We  inclose  fifty 
dollars  as  our  subscription  to  the  Anti-Slavery 
Society.  If  our  means  equaled  our  wishes,  we 
would  send  a  sum  as  large  as  the  legacy  Fran 
cis  Jackson  intended  for  that  purpose,  and  of 
which  the  society  was  deprived,  as  we  think,  by 
an  unjust  legal  decision.  If  our  sensible  and  ju 
dicious  friend  could  speak  to  us  from  the  other 
side  of  Jordan,  we  doubt  not  he  would  say  that 
the  vigilance  of  the  Anti-Slavery  Society  was 
never  more  needed  than  at  the  present  crisis, 
and  that,  consequently,  he  was  never  more  dis 
posed  to  aid  it  liberally.  .  .  . 

The  British  Anti-Slavery  Society  deserted 
their  post  too  soon.  If  they  had  been  as  watch 
ful  to  protect  the  freed  people  of  the  West 
Indies  as  they  were  zealous  to  emancipate  them, 
that  horrid  catastrophe  in  Jamaica  might  have 


140  CONTEMPORARIES 

been  avoided.  The  state  of  things  in  those 
islands  warns  us  how  dangerous  it  is  to  trust 
those  who  have  been  slaveholders,  and  those 
who  habitually  sympathize  with  slaveholders, 
to  frame  laws  and  regulations  for  liberated 
slaves.  As  well  might  wolves  be  trusted  to 
guard  a  sheepfold. 

We  thank  God,  friend  Phillips,  that  you  are 
preserved  and  strengthened  to  be  a  wakeful 
sentinel  on  the  watch-tower,  ever  to  warn  a 
drowsy  nation  against  selfish,  timid  politicians, 
and  dawdling  legislators,  who  manifest  no  trust 
either  in  God  or  the  people. 

Yours  faithfully, 

DAVID  L.  CHILD, 
L.  MARIA  CHILD. 

Mrs.  Child  outlived  her  husband  six  years, 
and  died  at  Wayland,  October  20,  1880.  She 
was  one  of  those  prominent  instances  in  our 
literature  of  persons  born  for  the  pursuits  of 
pure  intellect,  whose  intellects  were  yet  bal 
anced  by  their  hearts,  both  being  absorbed  in 
the  great  moral  agitations  of  the  age.  "My 
natural  inclinations,"  she  once  wrote  to  me, 
"drew  me  much  more  strongly  towards  litera 
ture  and  the  arts  than  towards  reform,  and  the 
weight  of  conscience  was  needed  to  turn  the 
scale."  In  a  community  of  artists,  she  would 


LYDIA   MARIA   CHILD  141 

have  belonged  to  that  class,  for  she  had  that 
instinct  in  her  soul.  But  she  was  placed  where 
there  was  as  yet  no  exacting  literary  standard  ; 
she  wrote  better  than  most  of  her  contempora 
ries,  and  well  enough  for  her  public.  She  did 
not,  therefore,  win  that  intellectual  immortal 
ity  which  only  the  very  best  writers  command, 
and  which  few  Americans  have  attained.  But 
she  won  a  meed  which  she  would  value  more 
highly,  —  that  warmth  of  sympathy,  that  min 
gled  gratitude  of  intellect  and  heart  which  men 
give  to  those  who  have  faithfully  served  their 
day  and  generation. 


HELEN  JACKSON  ("H.  H.") 

IT  is  curious  to  see  how  promptly  time  be 
gins  to  apply  to  the  memory  of  remarkable 
persons,  as  to  their  tombstones,  an  effacing 
process  that  soon  makes  all  inscriptions  look 
alike.  Already  we  see  the  beginnings  of  this 
tendency  in  regard  to  the  late  Mrs.  Helen  Jack 
son.  The^jriosji^nlliantj  impetuous,  and  thor 
oughly  individual  woman  of  her  time,  —  one 
whose  very  temperament  seemed  mingled  of 
sunshine  and  fire,  —  she  is  already  being  por 
trayed  simply  as  a  conventional  Sunday-school 
saint.  It  is  undoubtedly  true  that  she  wrote 
her  first  poetry  as  a  bereaved  mother  and  her 
last  prose  as  a  zealous  philanthropist.  Her 
life  comprised  both  these  phases,  and  she  thor 
oughly  accepted  them ;  but  it  included  so  much 
more,  —  it  belonged  to  a  personality  so  unique 
and  in  many_  respects  so  fascinating,  —  that 
those  who  knew  her  best  can  by  no  means  spare 
her  for  a  commonplace  canonization  which 
takes  the  zest  out  of  her  memory.  To  analyze 
her  would  be  impossible  except  to  the  trained 


HELEN   JACKSON  143 

skill  of  some  French  novelist ;  and  she  would 
have  been  a  sealed  book  to  him,  because  no 
Frenchman  could  comprehend  the  curious 
thread  of  firm  New  England  texture  that  ran 
through  her  whole  being,  tempering  wayward 
ness,  keeping  impulse  from  making  shipwreck 
of  itself,  and  leading  her  whole  life  to  a  high 
and  concentrated  purpose  at  last.  And  when 
we  remember  that  she  hated  gossip  about  her 
own  affairs,  wrote  only  under  two  initials,  and 
was  rarely  willing  to  mention  to  reporters  any 
fact  about  herself  except  her  birthday,  —  which 
she  usually,  with  characteristic  willfulness,  put 
a  year  earlier  than  it  was,  —  it  is  peculiarly 
hard  to  do  for  her  now  that  work  which  she 
held  in  such  aversion.  No  fame  or  publicity 
could  ever  make  her  seem,  to  those  who  knew 
her,  anything  but  the  most  private  and  intimate 
of  friends  ;  and  to  write  about  her  at  all  seems 
the  betrayal  of  a  confidence. 

Helen  Maria  Fiske,  the  daughter  of  Nathan 
Wiley  and  Deborah  (Vinal)  Fiske,  was  born  at 
Amherst,  Mass.,  October  18,  1831.  Her  father 
was  a  native  of  Weston,  Mass.,  was  a  graduate 
of  Dartmouth  College,  and,  after  being  a  tutor 
in  that  institution,  became  professor  first  of  lan 
guages  and  then  of  philosophy  in  Amherst 
College,  having  been  previously  offered  a  pro 
fessorship  of  mathematics  at  Middlebury  Col- 


144  CONTEMPORARIES 

lege,  —  a  combination  of  facts  indicating  the 
variety  of  his  attainments.  He  was  also  a  Con- 
gregationalist  minister  and  an  author,  publish 
ing  a  translation  of  Eschenburg's  "  Manual  of 
Classical  Literature  "  and  one  or  two  books  for 
children.  He  died  May  27,  1847,  at  Jerusalem, 
whither  he  had  gone  for  the  benefit  of  his  health. 
His  wife  was  a  native  of  Boston,  and  is  men 
tioned  with  affection  by  all  who  knew  her ;  and 
the  daughter  used  to  say  that  her  own  sunny 
temperament  came  from  the  mother's  side. 
She  also  had  literary  tastes,  and  wrote  the 
"Letters  from  a  Cat,"  which  her  daughter  after 
wards  edited,  and  which  show  a  genuine  humor 
and  a  real  power  of  expression.  She  died  Feb 
ruary  19,  1844,  when  her  daughter  Helen  was 
twelve  years  old.  Both  parents  held  the  strict 
Calvinistic  faith,  and  the  daughter  was  reared 
in  it,  though  she  did  not  long  remain  there. 

She  was  a  child  of  dangerous  versatility  and 
vivacity ;  and  her  bright  sayings  were  often 
quoted,  when  she  was  but  ten  or  twelve  years 
old,  in  the  academical  circle  of  the  little  college 
town.  She  has  herself  described  in  a  lively 
paper,  "The  Naughtiest  Day  of  my  Life*' 
("St.  Nicholas,"  September-October,  1880),  a 
childish  feat  of  running  away  from  home  in 
company  with  another  little  girl,  —  on  which 
occasion  the  two  children  walked  to  Hadley, 


HELEN   JACKSON  145 

four  miles,  before  they  were  brought  back. 
The  whole  village  had  joined  in  the  search 
for  them,  and  two  professors  from  the  col 
lege  finally  reclaimed  the  wanderers.  There  is 
something  infinitely  characteristic  of  the  ma 
ture  woman  in  the  description  written  by  her 
mother,  at  the  time,  of  the  close  of  that  anx 
ious  day:  " Helen  walked  in  at  a  quarter  be 
fore  ten  o'clock  at  night,  as  rosy  and  smiling 
as  possible,  and  saying  in  her  brightest  tone, 
'  Oh,  mother,  I  've  had  a  perfectly  splendid 
time.'  " 

A  child  of  this  description  may  well  have 
needed  the  discipline  of  a  variety  of  schools  ; 
and  she  had  the  advantage  of  at  least  two 
good  ones,  —  the  well-known  Ipswich  (Massa 
chusetts)  Female  Seminary,  and  the  private 
school  of  Rev.  J.  S.  C.  Abbott  in  New  York 
city.  She  was  married  in  Boston,  when  just 
twenty-one  —  October  28,  1852,  —  to  Captain 
(afterwards  Major)  Edward  B.  Hunt,  United 
States  Army,  whom  she  had  first  met  at  Al 
bany,  N.  Y.,  his  brother,  the  Hon.  Washing 
ton  Hunt,  being  at  that  time  governor  of  the 
State.  Captain  and  Mrs.  Hunt  led  the  usual 
wandering  life  of  military  households,  and  were 
quartered  at  a  variety  of  posts.  As  an  engineer 
officer  he  held  high  army  rank,  and  he  was 
also  a  man  of  considerable  scientific  attain- 


146  CONTEMPORARIES 

ments.  Their  first  child,  Murray,  a  beautiful 
boy,  died  of  dropsy  in  the  brain,  when  eleven 
months  old,  at  Tarrytown,  N.  Y.,  in  August, 
1854.  Major  Hunt  was  killed,  October  2, 
1863,  at  Brooklyn,  N.  Y.,  while  experiment 
ing  with  an  invention  of  his  own,  called  a 
"sea-miner,"  for  firing  projectiles  under  water. 
Mrs.  Hunt  still  had  her  second  boy,  named 
Warren  Horsford,  after  her  friends,  General 
G.  K.  Warren  and  Professor  Horsford,  but  com 
monly  called  "  Rennie."  He  had,  by  testimony 
of  all,  a  rare  combination  of  gifts  and  qualities, 
but  died  suddenly  of  diphtheria  at  his  aunt's 
home  in  West  Roxbury,  Mass.,  on  April  13, 
1865.  Mrs.  Hunt  was  thus  left  utterly  be 
reaved,  and  the  blow  was  crushing.  It  shows 
the  strong  relation  between  mother  and  child, 
and  also  the  precocious  character  of  her  boy, 
that  he  made  her  promise  not  to  take  her  own 
life  after  he  should  be  gone.  She  made  him  pro 
mise,  in  return,  that  if  it  were  a  possible  thing 
he  would  overcome  all  obstacles  and  come  back 
from  the  other  world  to  speak  to  her ;  and  the 
fact  that  this  was  never  done  kept  her  all  her 
life  a  disbeliever  in  Spiritualism  :  what  Rennie 
could  not  do,  she  felt  must  be  impracticable. 
For  months  after  his  death  she  shut  herself  up 
from  her  nearest  friends  ;  and  when  she  appeared 


HELEN    JACKSON  147 

among  them  at  last,  she  was  smiling,  vivacious, 
and  outwardly  unchanged. 

Up  to  this  time,  although  her  life  had  been 
full  of  variety  and  activity,  it  had  been  mainly 
domestic  and  social,  and  she  had  shown  no 
special  signs  of  a  literary  vocation.  She  loved 
society,  was  personally  very  attractive,  dressed 
charmingly,  and  had  many  friends  of  both 
sexes.  Through  her  husband  she  knew  many 
superior  men,  but  they  belonged  almost  wholly 
to  the  military  class,  or  were  those  men  of 
science  whom  she  was  wont  to  meet  at  the 
scientific  gatherings  to  which  she  accompa 
nied  Major  Hunt.  It  was  not  till  she  went, 
at  the  age  of  thirty-four,  to  live  in  Newport, 
R.  I.,  that  she  was  brought  much  in  contact 
with  people  whose  pursuits  were  literary ;  and 
it  was  partly,  no  doubt,  through  their  compan 
ionship  that  a  fresh  interest  and  a  new  em 
ployment  opened  almost  unexpectedly  before 
her.  How  wholly  she  regarded  her  life  as 
prematurely  ended  at  the  close  of  its  first 
phase,  may  be  seen  by  a  letter  written  soon 
after  establishing  herself  in  Newport,  whence 
she  had  made  a  trip  to  West  Point  to  superin 
tend  the  removal  of  the  remains  of  her  husband 
and  children  to  that  spot.  After  speaking  of 
the  talents  and  acquirements  whose  career  was 
finished,  she  bitterly  added,  "  And  I  alone  am 


148  CONTEMPORARIES 

left,  who  avail  nothing."     She  had  yet  to  learn 
how  much  her  own  life  was  to  avail. 

When  she  went  to  live  in  Newport  (Febru 
ary  10,  1866),  she  had  already  written  poems, 
and  had  shown  them  to  her  friends.  She  had, 
indeed,  when  in  her  teens,  published  some  girl 
ish  verses  in  the  Boston  "  Press  and  Post,"  but 
her  mature  compositions  had  all  related,  so  far 
as  I  know,  to  her  personal  bereavements.  Of 
these  she  had  published  one  in  the  "  Nation  " 
(July  20,  1865);  this  being  in  the  very  first 
volume  of  that  periodical,  which  was  edited  by 
a  personal  friend,  and  which  gave  at  first  more 
space  to  poetry  than  now.  This  poem  was 
called  "  Lifted  Over,"  and  consisted  of  fourteen 
lines  of  blank  verse,  referring  to  the  death  of 
her  boy,  and  signed  "Marah."  The  fact  of  its 
publication  makes  it  likely  that,  wherever  she 
had  taken  up  her  residence,  she  would  have 
published  more  poetry  of  the  elegiac  kind  ;  but 
it  is  doubtful  whether  her  lyre  would  have 
reached  a  wide  variety  of  notes,  or  whether  she 
would  have  been  known  as  a  prose  writer  at 
all  but  for  the  stimulus  and  fresh  interests 
developed  by  her  change  of  abode.  In  the 
society  of  her  new  friends  she  began  for  the 
first  time  to  make  a  study  of  literary  style 
and  methods  ;  she  interchanged  criticism  with 
others,  and  welcomed  it  as  applied  to  her  own 


HELEN   JACKSON  149 

attempts;  she  soon  ventured  to  publish  more 
poems,  and  then  to  try  herself  in  prose.  The 
signature  "H.  H."  first  appeared,  I  believe,  in 
connection  with  the  first  thing  she  published 
after  her  removal  to  Newport.  This  was  a 
poem  called  "Tryst,"  in  the  "Nation"  (April 

12,  1866),    followed  soon  by   a   translation  — 
almost   the    only  one   she    ever   made  —  from 
Victor  Hugo's  "Le  Soir"  ("Nation,"  April  26, 
1 866)  and  by  two  poems  called  "  A  Burial  Ser 
vice"  (May  22)   and  "Old  Lamps  for  New" 
(May  29),  —  this  last  being,  perhaps  by  accident, 
unsigned. 

These  were  soon  followed  by  poems  in  the 
New  York  "  Independent,"  —  beginning  with 
"Hagar"  (August  2,  1866)  and  "Bread  on  the 
Waters"  (August  9,  1866);  she  still  keeping 
mainly  to  her  experiences  of  sorrow.  Her  first 
attempt  in  prose,  under  her  own  signature,  ap 
peared  in  the  same  newspaper  for  September 

13,  1866,    and   was   entitled    "In   the   White 
Mountains."     It  was  a  sketch   of   a   walk  up 
Mount  Washington  from  the  Glen  House,  and, 
though   spiritedly   written,    gave   little   indica- 
cation  of  her  rising  so  far  above  the  grade  of 
the    average    summer    correspondent   as    she 
ultimately   attained.     She    also   wrote   an  un 
signed  review  of  "  Felix  Holt "    in  the   same 
number.     From   this   time  till   her  death   she 


ISO  CONTEMPORARIES 

was  an  occasional  correspondent  of  that  jour 
nal,  —  writing  for  it,  as  its  editors  say,  three 
hundred  and  seventy-one  articles  in  all.  She 
wrote  also  in  "  Hearth  and  Home,"  and  pub 
lished  a  few  poems  in  the  New  York  "  Even 
ing  Post." 

Thus  launched  into  literature,  she  entered 
with  the  enthusiasm  of  a  child  upon  her  new 
work.  She  distrusted  herself,  was  at  first  fear 
ful  of  each  new  undertaking,  yet  was  eager  to 
try  everything,  and  the  moment  each  plunge 
was  taken  lost  all  fear.  I  remember  the  sur 
prise  with  which  she  received  the  suggestion 
that  no  doubt  publishers  would  be  happy  to 
send  her  their  books  if  she  would  only  review 
them ;  and  her  delight,  as  in  a  new  world,  when 
she  opened  the  first  parcels.  From  the  begin 
ning  she  composed  with  great  rapidity,  writ 
ing  on  large  sheets  of  yellow  post-office  paper, 
eschewing  pen  and  ink,  and  insisting  that  a 
lead  pencil  alone  could  keep  pace  with  the  swift 
ness  of  her  thoughts.  The  remarkable  thing 
was  that,  with  all  this  quickness,  she  was  al 
ways  ready  to  revise  and  correct,  and  was  also 
a  keen  and  minute  critic  on  the  writings  of 
others.  It  was  very  surprising  that  one  who 
was  not  really  familiar  with  any  language  but 
her  own  —  for  the  Latin  of  her  school  days 
had  already  faded  and  even  her  French  was  at 


HELEN   JACKSON  151 

that  time  very  imperfect  —  should  have  such  a 
perception  of  the  details  of  style.  She  had, 
however,  been  well  trained  in  English  at  school, 
and  used  to  quote  Kames's  "  Elements  of  Criti 
cism  "  as  one  of  the  books  she  had  read  there. 
Both  her  father  and  her  mother  had  also  taken 
an  interest  in  her  early  school  compositions. 

A  statement  has  sometimes  appeared,  on  the 
authority  of  the  late  Mr.  R.  W.  Emerson,  that 
she  sent  poems  to  the  "  Atlantic "  in  those 
early  days,  and  that  they  were  rejected.  It  is 
possible  that  my  memory  may  not  include  all 
the  facts,  but  I  am  confident  that  this  state 
ment  is  an  error.  It  is  certain  that  she  was 
repeatedly  urged  to  send  something  in  that  direc 
tion  by  a  friend  who  then  contributed  largely 
to  the  magazine,  namely,  myself,  but  she  for 
a  long  time  declined,  saying  that  the  editors 
were  overwhelmed  with  poor  poetry,  and  that 
she  would  wait  for  something  of  which  she  felt 
sure.  At  last  she  gave  me  her  poem  called 
"  Coronation,"  with  permission  to  show  it  to 
Mr.  Fields  and  let  him  have  it  if  he  wished, 
at  a  certain  price.  It  was  a  high  price  for  a 
new-comer  to  demand  ;  but  she  was  inexorable, 
including  rather  curiously  among  her  traits  that 
of  being  an  excellent  business  woman,  and  gen 
erally  getting  for  her  wares  the  price  she  set 
upon  them.  Fields  read  it  at  once,  and  ex- 


152  CONTEMPORARIES 

claimed,  "  It 's  a  good  poem  ; "  then  read  it 
again,  and  said,  "  It 's  a  devilish  good  poem," 
and  accepted  it  without  hesitation.  It  appeared 
in  the  "Atlantic"  for  February,  1869,  and  an 
other  poem,  "  The  Way  to  Sing,"  followed  it 
a  year  after;  but  Fields,  while  greatly  admir 
ing  her  prose,  never  quite  did  justice  to  her 
poetry,  so  that  she  offered  but  little  verse  to  his 
magazine.  Her  "German  Landlady"  appeared 
there  (October,  1870),  and  was  followed  by  a 
long  line  of  prose  papers,  continuing  nearly 
until  her  death.  Her  little  volume  of  "Verses" 
was  printed  rather  reluctantly  by  Fields,  Os- 
good  &  Co.  (1870),  she  paying  for  the  stereo 
type  plates,  as  was  also  the  case  with  her  first 
prose  volume,  "Bits  of  Travel"  (1873),  pub 
lished  by  their  successors,  James  R.  Osgood  & 
Co.  Soon  after  this  she  transferred  her  books 
to  Roberts  Brothers,  who  issued  "  Bits  of  Talk 
about  Home  Matters  "  (1873)  and  a  much  en 
larged  edition  of  "Verses"  (1874).  After  this 
she  was  a  very  prosperous  author. 

She  spent  in  all  five  winters  at  Newport, 
always  at  the  same  hospitable  home,  —  Mrs. 
Hannah  Dame's  boarding-house,  —  and  always 
going  somewhere  among  the  mountains  in  sum 
mer  early  enough  to  keep  off  hay  fever,  from 
which  she  suffered.  Then  she  returned,  late 
in  autumn,  preceded  by  great  trunks  and  chests 


HELEN  JACKSON  153 

full  of  pressed  ferns  and  autumn  leaves,  which 
she  dispensed  royally  among  her  friends  during 
the  whole  winter-time.  These  Newport  sea 
sons  were  interrupted  by  an  absence  of  some 
fourteen  months  in  Europe  (November,  1868, 
to  February,  1870),  and  she  had  several  serious 
illnesses  toward  the  latter  part  of  the  period. 
Indeed,  she  had  an  almost  fatal  attack  while  in 
Rome,  and  I  am  informed  by  the  friend  with 
whom  she  traveled,  Miss  Sarah  F.  Clarke,  of  a 
peculiarly  characteristic  act  of  hers  when  con 
valescent.  Going  to  Albano  to  recruit,  she  re 
fused  to  carry  with  her  a  professed  nurse,  as 
her  friends  desired,  but  insisted  on  taking  a 
young  Italian  girl  of  sixteen,  who  had  never 
had  a  vacation  in  her  hard-working  life,  and  to 
whom  the  whole  period  of  attendance  would  be 
a  prolonged  felicity. 

In  May,  1872,  she  went  to  California  with 
her  friend  Miss  Sarah  C.  Woolsey,  and  in  1873- 
74,  being  convinced  that  her  health  needed  a 
thorough  change  of  climate,  tried  the  experi 
ment  of  a  winter  in  Colorado.  This  State  be 
came  soon  after  her  permanent  home,  —  she 
being  married  in  October,  1875,  at  her  sister's 
house  in  Wolfboro,  N.  H.,  to  Mr.  William 
Sharpless  Jackson,  of  Colorado  Springs.  They 
were  married  by  the  ceremonial  of  the  Society 
of  Friends,  the  bridegroom  being  of  that  persua- 


154  CONTEMPORARIES 

sion.  For  the  remaining  ten  years  of  her  career 
she  had  a  delightful  abode  and  a  happy  do 
mestic  life,  although  the  demands  of  her  health 
and  her  literary  work,  joined  with  a  restless 
and  adventurous  disposition,  kept  her  a  great 
deal  in  motion  between  her  new  and  her  old 
haunts.  Nobody  was  ever  a  more  natural  wan 
derer.  She  always  carried  with  her  a  compact 
store  of  favorite  pictures,  Japanese  prints,  and 
the  like;  so  that,  within  an  hour  after  she 
had  taken  possession  of  a  room  at  the  Parker 
House  in  Boston  or  the  Berkeley  in  New  York, 
she  would  be  sitting  in  a  tasteful  boudoir  of 
her  own  arranging.  With  this  came  an  equally 
ready  acceptance  of  the  outdoor  surroundings 
of  each  place ;  and  in  migrating  farther  west, 
she  soon  knew  more  of  Omaha  or  San  Fran 
cisco  than  the  oldest  inhabitant.  Her  wonder 
ful  eye  for  external  nature  traveled  with  her; 
she  planned  her  house  at  Colorado  Springs  with 
an  unerring  adaptation  to  the  landscape,  and 
on  one  occasion  welcomed  a  friend  with  more 
than  twenty  different  vases  of  the  magnificent 
wild  flowers  of  that  region  —  each  vase  filled 
with  a  great  sheaf  of  a  single  species.  She 
had  always  lavished  so  much  adornment  on  one 
or  two  rooms  that  her  friends  had  wondered 
what  she  would  do  with  a  whole  house  ;  and 
those  who  visited  her  at  Colorado  Springs  be 
held  the  fulfillment  of  their  wonderings. 


HELEN   JACKSON  155 

For  the  second  time  she  was  to  encounter  a 
wholly  new  intellectual  experience  after  adopt 
ing  a  new  abode.  The  literary  development, 
which  had  begun  somewhat  late,  was  to  be 
merged  into  a  moral  enthusiasm,  beginning  still 
later.  She  wrote  to  an  intimate  friend  (Janu 
ary  17,  1880)  :- 

"  I  have  done  now,  I  believe,  the  last  of  the 
things  I  had  said  I  never  would  do  ;  I  have  be 
come  what  I  have  said  a  thousand  times  was 
the  most  odious  thing  in  life,  — '  a  woman  with 
a  hobby/  But  I  cannot  help  it.  I  think  I  feel 
as  you  must  have  felt  in  the  old  abolition  days. 
I  cannot  think  of  anything  else  from  night  to 
morning  and  from  morning  to  night.  ...  I 
believe  the  time  is  drawing  near  for  a  great 
change  in  our  policy  toward  the  Indian.  In 
some  respects,  it  seems  to  me,  he  is  really  worse 
off  than  the  slaves  ;  they  did  have  in  the  ma 
jority  of  cases  good  houses,  and  they  were  not 
much  more  arbitrarily  controlled  than  the  In 
dian  is  by  the  agent  on  a  reservation.  He  can 
order  a  corporal's  guard  to  fire  on  an  Indian  at 
any  time  he  sees  fit.  He  is  *  duly  empowered 
by  the  government.' ' 

In  this  same  letter  she  announces  her  inten 
tion  of  going  to  work  for  three  months  at  the 
Astor  Library  on  her  "  Century  of  Dishonor ;" 
and  it  is  worth  noticing  that  with  all  her  en- 


1 56  CONTEMPORARIES 

thusiasm  she  does  not  disregard  that  careful 
literary  execution  which  is  to  be  the  means  to 
her  end  ;  for  in  the  same  letter  she  writes  to 
this  friend,  one  of  her  earliest  critics  :  "  I  shall 
never  write  a  sentence,  so  long  as  I  live,  with 
out  studying  it  over  from  the  standpoint  of 
whether  you  would  think  it  could  be  bettered." 
This  shows  that  she  did  not,  as  some  have  sup 
posed,  grow  neglectful  of  literature  in  the  inter 
est  of  reform  ;  as  if  a  carpenter  were  supposed 
to  neglect  his  tools  in  order  to  finish  his  job. 

Her  especial  interest  in  the  Indians  was  not 
the  instantaneous  result  of  her  Colorado  life, 
but  the  travels  and  observations  of  those  first 
years  were  doubtless  preparing  the  way  for  it. 
It  came  to  a  crisis  in  1879,  when  she  heard  the 
Indians  "  Standing  Bear  "  and  "  Bright  Eyes  " 
lecture  in  Boston  on  the  wrongs  of  the  Poncas, 
and  afterwards  met  them  in  New  York,  at  the 
house  of  her  friend  Mrs.  Botta.  Her  immedi 
ate  sympathy  for  them  seemed  very  natural  to 
those  who  knew  her,  but  it  was  hardly  foreseen 
how  strong  and  engrossing  that  interest  would 
become.  Henceforth  she  subordinated  litera 
ture  not  to  an  ulterior  aim,  merely,  for  that  she 
had  often  done  before,  but  to  a  single  aim.  It 
must  be  remembered,  in  illustration  of  this,  that 
at  least  half  the  papers  in  her  "  Bits  of  Talk  " 
were  written  with  a  distinct  moral  purpose,  and 


HELEN   JACKSON  157 

so  were  many  of  her  poems  ;  and  from  this 
part  of  her  work  she  had  always  great  enjoy 
ment.  So  ready  were  her  sympathies  that  she 
read  with  insatiable  pleasure  the  letters  that 
often  came  to  her  from  lonely  women  or  anx 
ious  schoolgirls  who  had  found  help  in  her 
simple  domestic  or  religious  poems,  while  her 
depths  of  passion  would  only  have  frightened 
them,  and  they  would  have  listened  bewildered 
to  those  sonnets  which  Emerson  carried  in  his 
pocket-book  and  pulled  out  to  show  his  friends. 
No,  there  was  always  a  portion  of  her  litera 
ture  itself  which  had  as  essentially  a  moral  mo 
tive  as  had  "  Ramona  ; "  and,  besides,  she  had 
always  been  ready  to  throw  aside  her  writing 
and  devote  whole  days,  in  her  impulsive  way,  to 
some  generous  task.  For  instance,  she  once, 
at  the  risk  of  great  unpopularity,  invoked  the 
aid  of  the  city  solicitor  and  half  the  physicians 
in  Newport  to  investigate  the  case  of  a  poor 
boy  who  was  being,  as  she  believed,  starved  to 
death,  and  whom  the  investigation  came  too 
late  to  save. 

Nor  was  the  Indian  question  the  first  reform 
that  had  set  her  thinking,  although  she  was  by 
temperament  fastidious,  and  therefore  conser 
vative.  On  the  great  slavery  question  she  had 
always,  I  suspect,  taken  regular-army  views  ; 
she  liked  to  have  colored  people  about  her  as 


158  CONTEMPORARIES 

servants,  but  was  disposed  to  resent  anything 
like  equality;  yet  she  went  with  me  to  a  jubilee 
meeting  of  the  colored  people  of  Newport,  after 
emancipation,  and  came  away  full  of  enthusi 
asm  and  sympathy,  with  much  contrition  as  to 
things  she  had  previously  said  and  done.  She 
tried  to  prevent  her  Newport  hostess  from  re 
ceiving  a  highly  educated  young  quadroon  lady 
as  a  temporary  boarder  in  the  house  ;  but  when 
the  matter  was  finally  compromised  by  her  com 
ing  to  tea  only,  Mrs.  Hunt  lavished  kindnesses 
upon  her,  invited  her  to  her  private  parlor,  and 
won  her  heart.  The  same  mixture  of  prejudice 
and  generosity  marked  her  course  in  matters  re 
lating  to  the  advancement  of  her  own  sex.  Pro 
fessedly  abhorring  woman  suffrage,  she  went 
with  me  to  a  convention  on  the  subject  in  New 
York,  under  express  contract  to  write  a  satir 
ical  report  in  a  leading  newspaper  ;  but  was  so 
instantly  won  over  —  as  many  another  has  been 
—  by  the  sweet  voice  of  Lucy  Stone,  that  she 
defaulted  as  a  correspondent,  saying  to  me, 
"  Do  you  suppose  I  ever  could  write  against 
anything  which  that  woman  wishes  to  have 
done  ? "  Afterwards  she  hospitably  enter 
tained  the  same  lecturer  when  visiting  Colo 
rado  ;  and  a  few  months  before  her  death  she 
gave  an  English  advocate  of  the  cause  a  letter 
to  one  of  her  Eastern  friends,  saying  that  her 


HELEN   JACKSON  159 

old  prejudices  were  somewhat  shaken.  A  Cali 
fornia  friend  tells  me,  indeed,  that  she  some 
times  felt  moved  to  write  something  on  the 
legal  and  other  disabilities  of  women. 

But  if  other  reforms  had  touched  her  a  little, 
they  had  never  controlled  or  held  her,  until  the 
especial  interest  in  the  Poncas  arose.  After 
that  she  took  up  work  in  earnest,  studied  the 
facts,  corresponded  with  statesmen,  and  finally 
wrote  her  "  Century  of  Dishonor,"  as  has  been 
said.  Over  this  she  fairly  worked  herself  ill, 
and  was  forced  to  go  to  Norway  for  refresh 
ment  with  her  friends  the  Horsfords,  leaving 
the  proofreading  to  be  done  by  myself.  Sev 
eral  charming  memorials  of  this  trip  appeared 
in  the  magazines.  She  afterwards  received  an 
appointment  from  the  United  States  govern 
ment  to  report  on  the  condition  and  needs  of 
the  California  "  Mission  Indians,"  in  connec 
tion  with  Abbott  Kinney,  Esq.,  and  she  visited 
all  or  most  of  those  tribes  for  this  purpose  in 
the  spring  of  1883.  The  report  of  the  com 
missioners,  which  is  understood  to  have  been 
mainly  prepared  by  her,  is  as  clear,  as  full,  and 
as  sensible  as  if  it  had  been  written  by  the 
most  prosaic  of  mankind.  She  also  explored  the 
history  of  the  early  Spanish  missions,  whose 
story  of  enthusiasm  and  picturesqueness  won 
her  heart,  and  she  wrote  the  series  of  papers 


160  CONTEMPORARIES 

in  regard  to  these  missions  which  appeared  in 
the  "  Century  Magazine." 

During  this  whole  period,  moreover,  she  did 
not  neglect  her  earlier  productions,  but  gath 
ered  them  into  volumes,  publishing  "  Bits  of 
Talk  for  Young  Folks"  (1876)  and  "Bits  of 
Travel  at  Home"  (1878).  She  also  issued  sep 
arately  (1879)  a  single  poem,  "The  Story  of 
Boon."  This  was  founded  on  a  tale  told  in 
"The  English  Governess  at  the  Siamese  Court," 
by  Mrs.  A.  H.  Leonowens,  a  lady  whose  enthu 
siasm  and  eloquence  found  ardent  sympathy  in 
Mrs.  Hunt,  who  for  her  sake  laid  down  her 
strong  hostility  to  women's  appearance  on  the 
platform,  and  zealously  organized  two  lectures 
for  her  friend.  She  published  also  a  little  book 
of  her  mother's,  "  Letters  from  a  Cat  "  (1880), 
and  followed  it  up  by  "  Mammy  Tittleback's 
Stories"  (1881),  of  her  own,  and  "The  Hunter 
Cats  of  Connorloa"  (1884).  Another  book, 
for  rather  older  children,  was  "  Nelly's  Silver 
Mine  "  (1878),  and  she  wrote  a  little  book  called 
"The  Training  of  Children"  (1882).  Then 
came  "  Ramona,"  first  published  in  the  "Chris 
tian  Union"  in  1884,  appearing  there  because 
it  had  been  written,  as  it  were,  at  a  white  heat, 
and  she  could  not  wait  for  the  longer  delays  of 
a  magazine.  It  was  issued  in  book  form  that 
same  year,  and  completes  the  list  of  her  ac- 


HELEN   JACKSON  161 

knowledged  works.  It  was  no  secret,  however, 
that  she  wrote,  in  the  "  No  Name "  series, 
"Mercy  Philbrick's  Choice"  (1876)  and  "  Hetty's 
Strange  History  "  (1877).  Into  the  question  of 
other  works  that  may  have  been  rightly  or 
wrongly  attributed  to  her,  the  present  writer 
does  not  propose  to  enter. 

The  sad  story  of  her  last  illness  need  not 
here  be  recapitulated.  She  seemed  the  victim 
of  a  series  of  misfortunes,  beginning  with  the 
long  confinement  incident  to  a  severe  fracture 
of  the  leg  in  June,  1884,  this  being  followed  by 
her  transfer  to  a  malarious  residence  in  Cali 
fornia,  and  at  last  by  the  discovery  of  a  con 
cealed  cancerous  affection  that  had  baffled  her 
physicians  and  herself.  During  all  this  period 
-much  of  it  spent  alone,  with  only  a  hired 
attendant,  far  from  all  old  friends,  though  she 
was  cheered  by  the  constant  kindness  of  newer 
ones  —  her  sunny  elasticity  never  failed  ;  and 
within  a  fortnight  of  her  death  she  wrote  long 
letters,  in  a  clear  and  vigorous  hand,  expressing 
only  cheerful  hopes  for  the  future,  whether  she 
should  live  or  die.  One  of  the  last  of  these 
was  to  President  Cleveland,  to  thank  him  for 
sustaining  the  rights  of  the  Indians.  Her  hus 
band,  who  had  been  previously  detained  in  Col 
orado  by  important  business,  was  with  her  at 
the  last,  and  she  passed  away  quietly  but  un- 


162  CONTEMPORARIES 

consciously,  on  the  afternoon  of  August  12, 
1885.  A  temporary  interment  took  place  in 
San  Francisco,  the  services  being  performed  by 
the  Rev.  Horatio  Stebbins,  who  read,  very  ap 
propriately,  the  "  Last  Words,"  with  which  her 
little  volume  of  verses  ends.  It  was  the  pre 
cise  memorial  she  would  have  desired. 

The  poetry  of  Mrs.  Jackson  unquestionably 
takes  rank  above  that  of  any  American  woman, 
and  its  only  rival  would  be  found,  curiously 
enough,  in  that  of  her  early  schoolmate,  Emily 
Dickinson.  Emerson,  as  is  well  known,  rated 
it  above  that  of  almost  all  American  men.  Her 
works  include,  first,  the  simple  poetry  of  do 
mestic  life ;  secondly,  love  poems  of  extraordi 
nary  intensity  and  imaginative  fullness  ;  thirdly, 
verses  showing  most  intimate  sympathy  with 
external  nature ;  and  lastly,  a  few  poems  of  the 
highest  dignity  and  melody  in  the  nature  of 
odes,  such  as  "A  Christmas  Symphony"  and 
"A  Funeral  March."  The  poem  which  com 
bines  the  most  of  depth  and  the  most  of  popu 
lar  appreciation  is  that  called  "  Spinning,"  where 
a  symbol  drawn  from  common  life  assumes  the 
sort  of  solemn  expressiveness  that  belongs  to 
the  humble  actions  of  peasants  in  the  pictures 
of  the  French  Millet.  Emerson's  favorite  was 
her  sonnet  called  "  Thought ; "  and  other  critics 
have  given  the  palm  for  exquisiteness  of  musi- 


HELEN   JACKSON  163 

cal  structure  to  her  "  Gondolieds."  But  her 
poetry  was  only  a  small  portion  of  her  literary 
work ;  and  of  the  range  and  value  of  this  pro 
duct,  a  good  conception  will  be  given  when  we 
say  that  a  plan  was  at  one  time  seriously  formed, 
by  the  late  Dr.  Holland  and  his  associate  in 
charge  of  the  "Century  Magazine,"  to  let  Mrs. 
Jackson's  contributions  accumulate  sufficiently 
to  fill  one  number  of  the  periodical,  —  poetry, 
fiction,  travels,  criticism,  and  all,  —  and  then 
send  it  all  forth  as  the  product  of  one  person. 
The  plan  was  finally  dismissed,  as  I  am  assured, 
not  from  the  slightest  doubt  of  its  practicabil 
ity,  but  only  because  it  might  be  viewed  as  sen 
sational.  It  would  have  been  the  greatest  com 
pliment  ever  yet  paid  by  editors,  in  the  whole 
history  of  magazine  literature,  to  the  resources 
of  a  single  contributor. 

There  is  in  her  prose  writings  an  even  excel 
lence  of  execution  which  is  not  always  to  be 
found  in  her  poetry,  and  which  is  surpassed  by 
hardly  any  American  writer.  It  is  always  clear, 
strong,  accurate,  spirited,  and  forcible ;  she  had 
a  natural  instinct  for  literary  structure,  as  well 
as  style,  and  a  positive  genius  for  giving  char 
acteristic  and  piquant  titles  to  what  she  wrote. 
It  was  her  delight  not  merely  to  explore  the 
new,  but  to  throw  novel  and  unexpected  fresh 
ness  around  the  old.  Before  she  had  become 


164  CONTEMPORARIES 

so  wide  a  traveler  she  used  to  plan  a  book,  to 
be  called  "  Explorations  "  or  some  such  title,  in 
which  all  the  most  familiar  scenery  was  to  be 
described  under  fictitious  names ;  and  only  the 
map  appended  would  gradually  reveal,  through 
its  new  local  phraseology,  that  "Hide  and  Seek 
Town  "  was  Princeton,  Mass.,  and  so  on  indefi 
nitely.  Her  poetry  sometimes  offered  deeper 
enigmas  than  these  superficial  ones,  and  some 
of  the  best  of  it  will  never  be  fully  compre 
hended  but  by  the  few  who  had  the  key  to 
the  events  or  emotions  that  called  it  forth.  So 
ardent  were  her  sympathies  that  everything 
took  color  from  her  personal  ties  ;  and  her  read 
iness  to  form  these  ties  with  persons  of  all 
ages,  both  sexes,  and  every  condition  not  only 
afforded  some  of  her  greatest  joys,  but  also 
brought  the  greatest  perils  of  her  life  ;  often 
involving  misconception,  perplexity,  and  keen 
disappointment  to  herself  and  to  others.  Her 
friendships  with  men  had  the  frankness  and 
openness  that  most  women  show  only  to  one 
another ;  and  her  friendships  with  women  had 
the  romance  and  ideal  atmosphere  that  her  sex 
usually  reserves  for  men.  There  was  an  utterly 
exotic  and  even  tropical  side  of  her  nature, 
strangely  mingled  with  the  traits  that  came 
from  her  New  England  blood.  Where  her  sym 
pathy  went,  even  in  the  least  degree,  there  she 


HELEN   JACKSON  165 

was  ready  to  give  all  she  had,  —  attention,  time, 
trouble,  money,  popularity,  reputation,  —  and 
this  with  only  too  little  thought  of  the  morrow. 
The  result  was  found  not  merely  in  many  un 
reasonable  requests,  but  in  inconvenient  and 
unlooked-for  expectations.  During  the  middle 
period  of  her  life  there  was  never  any  security 
that  the  morning  postman  might  not  bring  an 
impassioned  letter  from  some  enamored  young 
girl,  proposing  to  come  and  spend  her  life  with 
her  benefactress ;  or  a  proffer  of  hand  and 
heart  from  some  worthy  man,  with  whom  she 
had  mistakenly  supposed  herself  to  be  on  a 
footing  of  the  plainest  good-fellowship.  It  some 
times  taxed  all  her  great  resources  of  kindness 
and  ready  wit  to  extract  herself  from  such  en 
tanglements  ;  and  she  never  could  be  made  to 
understand  how  they  had  come  about  or  why 
others  in  turn  succeeded  them. 

She  had  great  virtues,  marked  inconsisten 
cies,  and  plenty  of  fascinating  faults  that  came 
near  to  virtues.  She  was  never  selfishly  un 
generous,  but  she  was  impulsive  in  her  scorn  of 
mean  actions,  and  was  sometimes  very  unjust 
to  those  whom  she  simply  did  not  understand ; 
this  misconception  usually  occurring,  however, 
in  the  too  Quixotic  defense  of  a  friend  or  a  prin 
ciple.  To  those  who  knew  her  best  she  was  a 
person  quite  unique  and  utterly  inexhaustible  ; 


166  CONTEMPORARIES 

and  though  her  remoteness  of  residence  during 
the  last  ten  years  had  separated  her  from  the 
society  of  many  of  her  earlier  friends,  there  is 
not  one  of  them  who  did  not  feel  the  world 
deeply  impoverished  by  her  going  out  of  it. 
She  did  not  belong  to  a  class  ;  she  left  behind 
her  no  second  ;  and  neither  memory  nor  fancy 
can  restore  her  as  she  was,  or  fully  reproduce, 
even  for  those  who  knew  her  best,  that  ardent 
and  joyous  personality.  And  those  who  recall 
her  chiefly  in  gayer  moods  will  find  their  re 
membrance  chastened  by  the  thought  that  she 
could  write,  when  finally  face  to  face  with 
death,  such  a  poem  as  "  Habeas  Corpus,"  "  Ac 
quainted  with  Grief,"  and  "A  Last  Prayer,"  or 
even  a  letter  like  this  :  — 

"I  feel  that  my  work  is  done,  and  I  am  heart 
ily,  honestly,  and  cheerfully  ready  to  go.  In 
fact,  I  am  glad  to  go.  You  have  never  fully 
realized  how  for  the  last  four  years  my  whole 
heart  has  been  full  of  the  Indian  cause  —  how 
I  felt,  as  the  Quakers  say,  '  a  concern  '  to  work 
for  it.  My  '  Century  of  Dishonor  '  and  '  Ra- 
mona '  are  the  only  things  I  have  done  of  which 
I  am  glad  now.  The  rest  is  of  no  moment. 
They  will  live  and  they  will  bear  fruit.  They 
already  have.  The  change  in  public  feeling  on 
the  Indian  question  in  the  last  three  years  is 
marvelous  ;  an  Indian  Rights'  Association  in 


HELEN   JACKSON  167 

every  large  city  in  the  land.  .  .  .  Every  word 
of  the  Indian  history  in  '  Ramona '  is  literally 
true,  and  it  is  being  reenacted  here  every  day. 

"  I  did  mean  to  write  a  child's  story  on  the 
same  theme  as  *  Ramona,'  but  I  doubt  if  I  could 
have  made  it  so  telling  a  stroke,  so  perhaps  it 
is  as  well  that  I  should  not  do  it.  And  per 
haps  I  shall  do  it  after  all,  but  I  cannot  con 
ceive  of  getting  well  after  such  an  illness  as 
this." 


JOHN  HOLMES 

IT  is  now  some  years  since  I  spent  a  certain 
agreeable  evening,  at  the  house  of  a  Cambridge 
neighbor,  with  the  celebrated  Pere  Hyacinthe 
and  his  accomplished  American  wife.  They 
had  with  them  their  only  child,  a  little  boy 
eight  or  ten,  who  had  been  described  in  some 
of  the  French  journals  as  a  monster  of  deform 
ity,  inasmuch  as  his  father  had  been  a  priest, 
but  who  was  in  reality  beautiful  in  form  and 
face,  and  altogether  attractive.  The  child  was 
in  his  first  enthusiasm  of  autograph  collecting. 
He  had  a  pile  of  little  squares  of  paper,  neatly 
cut,  and  whenever  a  new  guest  entered  the 
room,  he  would  run  to  his  mother  or  to  the 
hostess,  asking  eagerly  in  respect  to  the  latest 
visitor,  "  Est-il  celebre  ?  "  Whenever  told  that 
the  new-comer  was  at  least  sufficiently  cele 
brated  for  autographic  purposes,  the  child  would 
come  shyly  and  gracefully  up  to  him  and  ask 
in  the  sweetest  of  voices  for  his  signature.  At 
last  there  entered  a  short,  squarely  built  man, 
with  white  hair,  white  mustache,  and  thick 
eyebrows  still  black  —  with  erect  figure,  fine 


JOHN    HOLMES  169 

carriage  of  the  head,  and  a  bearing  often  de 
scribed  as  military.  The  hostess,  after  the 
usual  inquiry,  explained  to  the  little  boy  that 
this  new  guest,  though  not  personally  famous, 
was  the  only  brother  of  the  celebrated  Dr. 
Oliver  Wendell  Holmes.  The  newly  arrived 
guest,  being  therefore  offered  his  little  piece  of 
paper  and  having  presumably  heard  the  con 
sultation,  wrote  upon  it  this  brief  inscription, 
"John  Holmes,  frtre  de  monfrtre" 

The  statement,  however  felicitous  under  the 
circumstances,  would  not  bear  more  than  a 
general  acceptance  as  to  the  facts.  Few  bro 
thers  so  gifted  were  less  alike  in  looks  and 
in  habits,  and  although  without  the  slightest 
visible  disagreement,  and  residing  but  a  few 
miles  from  each  other,  they  had  practically 
lived  much  apart.  In  their  personal  habits, 
indeed,  they  covered  the  whole  range,  from 
the  most  vivacious  and  companionable  existence 
to  the  most  reticent  and  reserved.  The  elder 
brother  was  born  to  live  among  cheery,  social 
groups.  He  was  fond  of  society,  not  averse  to 
admiration,  always  ready  for  new  acquaintances 
and  novel  experiences.  The  younger  brother, 
while  the  more  distinguished  and  noticeable  in 
appearance  of  the  two,  was  in  the  last  degree 
self-withdrawing  and  modest,  more  than  con 
tent  to  be  held  by  the  world  at  arm's  length, 


i;o  CONTEMPORARIES 

yet  capable  of  the  most  devoted  and  unselfish 
loyalty  to  the  few  real  intimates  he  loved. 
Perhaps  my  first  vivid  association  with  him  is 
when  my  elder  brother,  one  of  his  especial  cro 
nies  and  then  a  law  student,  came  home  with 
two  volumes  of  a  newly  published  set  of  the 
Waverley  novels,  the  first  American  edition. 
He  said  to  my  mother,  "Johnny  has  just  given 
me  these,  and  he  says  he  is  going  to  give  me 
the  whole  set."  "But  you  ought  not  to  accept 
them,"  said  my  mother.  "He  cannot  afford 
such  a  gift."  "  But  he  has  already  subscribed 
for  them,"  said  my  brother,  "and  he  says  if  I 
don't  take  them  he  '11  put  them  in  the  fire,  and 
it  would  be  just  like  Johnny  to  do  it."  From 
this  there  was  no  appeal,  and  it  would  be  dif 
ficult  to  tell  how  much  of  the  enjoyment  of  my 
boyhood  I  owe  to  this  imprudent  generosity  of 
John  Holmes. 

Born  at  Cambridge  (March  29,  1812)  in  the 
"  gambrel-roofed  house "  made  famous  by  his 
brother;  graduating  at  Harvard  in  1832  and  at 
the  Harvard  Law  School  in  1839;  ne  was  f°r 
years  of  early  life  kept  by  chronic  lameness  a 
prisoner  in  his  chair,  with  one  foot  on  a  footrest. 
He  never  practiced  law,  nor  did  he  attempt  any 
other  profession,  and  he  never  married,  —  his 
betrothed  having  died  of  consumption  in  his 
early  youth.  He  lived  alone  for  many  years 


JOHN   HOLMES  171 

with  his  aged  mother,  who  died  at  the  age  of 
ninety-three,  on  August  19,  1862.  A  quaint  por 
trait  of  her  will  be  found  engraved  in  Morse's 
Life  of  Dr.  Holmes  (ii.  164).  Her  elder  son 
describes  her  as  "keeping  her  lively  sensibili 
ties  and  sweet  intelligence  to  the  last,"  and  goes 
on  to  add :  "  My  brother  John  had  long  cared 
for  her  in  the  most  tender  way,  and  it  almost 
broke  his  heart  to  part  with  her.  She  was  a 
daughter  to  him,  she  said,  and  he  had  fondly 
thought  that  love  and  care  could  keep  her  frail 
life  to  the  filling  up  of  a  century  or  beyond  it. 
It  was  a  pity  to  look  on  him  in  his  first  grief ; 
but  Time,  the  great  consoler,  is  busy  with  his 
anodyne,  and  he  is  coming  back  to  himself  " 
(Morse's  Holmes,  ii.  165). 

Not  long  after  Mrs.  Holmes's  death  the  old 
house  became  the  property  of  Harvard  Univer 
sity  and  John  Holmes  lived  for  the  rest  of  his 
life  in  a  little  cottage  on  the  short  street  called 
Appian  Way.  Here  he  boarded  with  an  excellent 
and  faithful  woman  who  had  been  for  many  years 
in  the  service  of  the  Holmes  household.  His 
mode  of  life,  always  blameless  and  abstemious, 
was  now  almost  Spartan  in  its  simplicity  ;  few 
college  students  at  the  present  day  have  rooms 
so  bare,  and  he  would  allow  himself  no  indul 
gence  beyond  occasional  carriage  driving  with 
old  friends.  His  circle  of  intimates  included 


i;2  CONTEMPORARIES 

only  six  or  eight  persons  in  Cambridge  :  James 
Russell  Lowell,  John  Bartlett,  Dr.  Estes  Howe 
(Holmes's  classmate  and  Lowell's  brother-in- 
law),  Professor  James  B.  Thayer,  and  for  a  time 
James  Murray  Howe,  Dr.  Howe's  younger  bro 
ther.  With  these  he  used  to  take  walks  on  Cam 
bridge  Common,  which  he  called  the  "philoso 
pher's  camp,"  and  with  the  first  three  of  these 
he  used  regularly  to  play  whist.  There  were 
included  in  his  circle  also  a  few  ladies  whom  he 
had  known  from  youth,  and  also  the  late  Robert 
Carter,  Lowell's  associate  in  editing  "  The  Pio 
neer,"  whom  the  poet  had  christened  Don 
Roberto  Wagonero,  or,  more  briefly,  the  Don. 
Holmes  owned  a  little  real  estate  in  Cambridge, 
yielding  him  a  modest  support  and  freeing  him 
from  pecuniary  anxiety.  He  had  at  intervals 
recurrences  of  the  old  lameness  and  also  of 
weak  eyes,  but  his  buoyancy  of  temperament 
made  these  quite  subordinate.  His  friends 
read  aloud  to  him  a  great  deal.  His  neighbor 
and  business  manager,  George  P.  Lawrence, 
Esq.,  tells  me  that  he  read  to  Holmes  nearly 
the  whole  series  of  the  Erckmann  -  Chatrian 
historical  novels  ;  the  reader  receiving  from  his 
friend  the  brevet  name  of  Cobus,  from  a  ser 
geant  in  one  of  the  stories,  and  being  habitually 
called  on  for  the  countersign  before  entering 
the  door.  Lowell's  letters,  on  the  other  hand, 


JOHN    HOLMES  173 

Holmes  never  wished  to  have  read  to  him, 
saying  that  he  "knew  it  all  before."  He  had 
plenty  of  such  little  whims,  as  for  instance  in 
disliking  to  have  flowers  sent  to  him,  and  saying 
he  did  not  enjoy  their  odor.  He  was  never 
prominent  in  the  circle  of  his  brother's  friends, 
except  in  the  case  of  Lowell.  His  name  does 
not  once  occur  in  the  index  to  Longfellow's 
memoirs,  though  the  two  men  lived  within  a 
few  blocks  of  each  other  and  although  the 
poet's  eldest  daughter  was  in  later  life  a  kind 
and  devoted  friend  to  him.  It  is  indeed  found 
but  four  times  in  the  index  to  Morse's  Life 
of  Dr.  O.  W.  Holmes.  In  the  two  volumes 
of  Lowell's  letters,  on  the  other  hand,  John 
Holmes  appears  nearly  as  often  as  his  more 
famous  brother. 

The  main  incidents  of  John  Holmes' s  eighty- 
seven  years  of  life,  —  for  he  died  on  January  27, 
1899  —  consisted  of  two  visits  to  Europe,  one 
in  1839  when  a  young  law  student,  and  again 
when  he  went  with  Mr.  and  Mrs.  J.  R.  Lowell 
in  July,  1872,  remaining  this  time  until  June  of 
the  following  year,  having  spent  most  of  the 
period  in  Paris,  but  also  a  month  in  Italy  and  a 
short  time  in  Germany.  He  was  never  a  pro 
fuse  letter  writer,  and  even  his  brief  European 
epistles  give  us  little  beyond  routine.  In 
spite  of  the  companionship  of  Lowell,  he  was 


174  CONTEMPORARIES 

restrained  by  his  own  infirmities  in  respect  to 
sight  and  locomotion  ;  so  that  he  says  in  one  of 
these  letters  to  Mr.  Bartlett  (Paris,  November 
26,  1872  :)  "  You  see  that  it  is  by  no  means  a 
gay  life  that  I  lead  away  from  home,  though 
now  a  very  comfortable  one,  and  so  far  as 
domestic  life  is  concerned  a  very  pleasant  one, 
except  that  I  am  necessarily  a  great  deal  alone. 
J.  L.  [Lowell]  has  to  go  out  a  good  deal,  and 
I  cannot  of  course  accompany  him.  Paris  is 
more  beautiful  than  I  remember  it  to  be,  and  a 
more  solid  city  than  London,  if  stone  is  con 
sidered  more  massive  than  brick."  Compare, 
on  the  other  hand,  the  endless  amusement  he 
extracts  in  Cambridge  from  the  midsummer 
desertion  of  a  college  town  :  — 

"  Solitude  reigns  here.  The  average  number 
of  people  that  pass  for  twelve  hours  from  6  to 
6,  per  hour  is  y1^.  At  io5  p.  M.  the  travel  (of 
pedestrians)  is  o,  and  from  that  time  till  6  the 
next  morning,  you  can  hear  a  small  dog  bark, 
over  the  river.  I  should  like  to  hear  a  hand- 
organ,  or  some  fire  crackers,  or  some  saw-filing 
or  something.  The  only  amusement  we  have 
is  the  burglaries.  You  would  be  surprised  to 
see  how  cheerful  everybody  looks  when  there 
has  been  a  'breaking  and  entering'  (Legal 
expression).  But  they  are  very  rare.  Of 
course  we  can't  count  the  funerals  that  pass 


JOHN    HOLMES  175 

through  town  as  gaieties  :  but  I  fear  that  some 
people  —  I  hesitate  to  express  my  thought  — 
yes,  I  will  say  it  —  that  some  people  begin  to 
enjoy  them.  The  city  government  foresaw  the 
dullness  &  melancholy  of  midsummer  and  by 
a  happy  thought,  they  instituted  repairs  on  the 
old  burial  ground  to  keep  people's  spirits  up. 
There  are  no  mosquitoes  nor  bugs  and  I  confess 
I  miss  them,  —  they  make  things  lively,  at  any 
rate." 

Then  follows :  — 

DIARY    OF    A    CITIZEN     OF    CAMBRIDGE. 

August  i.  Repairs  of  meetinghouse  &  bury 
ing  ground  going  on  —  a  dorbug  flew  in  at  a 
window  —  caused  alarm  of  burglars  —  great 
excitement  in  the  town. 

August  2.  Repairs  still  going  on ;  a  man 
who  had  n't  left  enough  in  his  bottle  fell  off  his 
cart,  but  escaped  without  broken  legs  —  a  great 
deal  of  excitement  in  the  town  — 

August  3.     Repairs  still  going  on. 

August  4.     Repairs  continued. 

August  5.  Repairs  on  the  meetinghouse 
going  on. 

August  6.  Repairs  of  meetinghouse  &  bur 
ial  ground  very  considerably  advanced. 

August  7.  Workmen  still  busy  on  the 
meetinghouse. 


i;6  CONTEMPORARIES 

August  8.  The  repairs  of  the  church  are 
continued. 

August  9.  The  meetinghouse  still  under 
repair. 

Later  in  the  season  he  notes  the  premonitions 
of  the  autumnal  return  of  his  Cambridge  neigh 
bors  :  "  You  see  at  dusk  a  little  procession  move 
wearily  along  Appian  Way.  The  smallest  child 
has  something  or  other  to  carry.  It  does  n't 
look  like  a  jubilant  return." 

While  in  Paris  Holmes  studied  French  most 
faithfully,  though  perhaps  tardily ;  and  he  used 
every  summer  afterwards  to  work  away  at 
his  French  grammar  on  the  piazza  of  my 
brother's  house  at  Cohasset,  or  that  of  Dr. 
Charles  Ware,  their  classmate  and  boyish  play 
mate,  at  Rindge,  N.  H.  My  sister-in-law 
described  him  as  the  pleasantest  of  inmates,  — 
always  able  to  amuse  himself  even  in  the  inter 
vals  of  French  grammar ;  a  little  whimsical  and 
old-bachelorish,  but  never  taking  offense  and 
never  moody  or  suffering  from  ennui.  This 
was  all  in  keeping.  The  mere  wit  is  lost  with 
out  a  companion  with  whom  to  cross  swords, 
but  the  humorist  finds  a  companion  in  the  pass 
ing  stranger,  in  a  stray  dog,  in  a  butterfly,  or  in 
a  cankerworm.  This  at  least,  was  true  of  John 
Holmes. 


JOHN    HOLMES  177 

I  do  not  suppose  that  there  was  ever  a  mo 
ment  in  John  Holmes's  peaceful  and  prolonged 
existence  when  he  could  really  have  been  said 
to  have  envied  his  more  famous  brother.  The 
"  cool  sequestered  vale  of  life  "  was  the  choice 
of  his  temperament,  and  he  certainly  had  it. 
When  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson  once  said  of  him, 
"John  Holmes  represents  humor,  while  his 
elder  brother  stands  for  wit,"  he  really  placed 
the  younger  the  higher  of  the  two ;  but  it  is 
doubtful  whether  the  latter  ever  heard  the  re 
mark,  or  would  have  paid  much  attention  to  it 
had  it  reached  him.  Wits  are  not  uncommon 
and  are  seldom  unappreciated,  but  the  inborn 
humorist,  for  whom  daily  life  furnishes  its  own 
entertainment,  is  less  recognized  by  the  public 
and  yet  seldom  suffers  by  the  omission.  The 
most  commonplace  event,  the  most  uninterest 
ing  tramp  who  wandered  through  the  little 
street,  was  enough  to  feed  John  Holmes's 
thoughts  and  to  supply  his  conversation  with 
spice.  He  kept  piles  of  assorted  coins  on  his 
window  seat  with  which  to  supply,  according  to 
his  whim,  these  stray  passers-by,  sometimes 
questioning  them  and  getting  an  ample  money's 
worth  before  they  left  him.  Next  to  them  in 
his  confidence  were  his  friends'  children,  to 
whom  also  the  intrinsic  charm  of  a  little  bit  of 
silver  must  be  taught.  His  devices  in  over- 


178  CONTEMPORARIES 

coming  their  scruples  were  varied  and  indeed 
endless.  I  have  heard  him  say  to  one  of  them, 
"  My  dear,  did  you  know  that  a  toll  has  to  be 
paid  for  every  child  who  passes  through  this 
street  ?  "  And  when  met  by  an  anxious  and 
wondering  glance,  he  would  persevere  :  "  Yes  ! 
it  is  true,  it  always  must  be  paid,  but  it  makes 
no  difference  who  pays  it ;  you  may  pay  it  to 
me,  or  I  will  pay  it  to  you.  It  will  be  the  same 
thing.  So  you  will  have  to  take  this  quarter  of 
a  dollar,  "  —  a  sum  which  the  child  would  then 
receive  and  bear  away  with  a  vague  sense  of 
that  virtue  which  is  its  own  reward. 

His  humor  was  singularly  spontaneous,  and 
took  oftenest  the  form  of  a  droll  picture  cul 
minating  in  a  little  dramatic  scene  in  which  he 
enacted  all  the  parts.  A  grave  discussion,  for 
instance,  as  to  the  fact,  often  noticed,  that 
men  are  apt  to  shorten  in  size  as  they  grow 
older,  suggested  to  him  the  probable  working 
of  this  process  in  some  vast  period  of  time  like 
the  longevity  of  the  Old  Testament  patriarchs. 
His  busy  fancy  at  once  conjured  up  a  picture 
of  Methuselah  in  his  literally  declining  years, 
when  he  had  shrunk  to  be  less  than  knee-high 
compared  with  an  ordinary  man.  The  patriarch 
is  running  about  the  room,  his  eyes  streaming 
with  tears.  "  What  's  the  matter,  Thuse  ?  " 
says  a  benevolent  stranger.  "  Why  are  you 


JOHN   HOLMES  179 

crying  ?"  "  I  ain't  crying,"  responds  the  aged 
patriarch,  brushing  away  the  drops.  "  It 's 
these  plaguy  shoestrings  that  keep  getting 
into  my  eyes."  Again,  in  answer  to  an  inquiry 
about  a  child,  I  made  some  commonplace  re 
mark  on  the  tormenting  rapidity  with  which 
one's  friends'  children  grow  up,  and  he  said 
eagerly  :  "  That 's  it !  That 's  it !  It  is  always 
the  way  !  You  meet  an  old  friend,  and  say  to 
her  in  a  friendly  manner,  '  By  the  way,  how 
is  that  little  girl  of  yours  ? '  and  she  answers, 
*  Very  well,  I  thank  you.  She  is  out  in  Kansas, 
visiting  her  grand-daughter.'  "  Did  any  other 
man  ever  concentrate  four  whole  generations 
of  human  life  into  so  brief  a  formula  ? 

These  odd  fancies  were  never  worked  up 
in  advance,  rarely  duplicated,  often  forgotten. 
You  might  tell  him  his  own  bits  of  humor  six 
months  after,  and  he  would  credit  them  to  you, 
as  your  own.  Often  the  fun  consisted  merely 
in  an  expression  of  surprise,  a  drawing  up  of 
the  mouth,  a  shutting  of  the  eyelids,  so  whim 
sical  that  in  any  other  hands  the  story  would 
have  failed.  Such  was  one  that  he  was  some 
times  called  upon  to  duplicate,  where  a  young 
man  at  a  party,  having  been  served  with  tea 
and  cake,  and  finding  the  tea  too  hot  to  drink, 
and  no  table  near  on  which  to  rest  it,  seeks  in 
vain  to  pour  it  into  his  saucer  for  cooling.  He 


i8o  CONTEMPORARIES 

is  unable  to  pour  it,  because  of  the  piece  of 
cake  in  his  hand.  At  last  a  happy  thought 
occurs  to  him.  He  will  put  the  cake  in  his 
mouth,  and  leave  his  hands  free.  The  tea  is 
poured  with  success,  and  he  is  about  to  drink  it, 
when  it  suddenly  occurs  to  him  that  he  still  has 
the  cake  in  his  mouth,  and  is  as  far  off  as  ever 
from  relief.  John  Holmes's  look  of  sudden 
despair  and  hopelessness,  when  the  young  man 
makes  this  discovery,  is  something  which  no 
one  else  could  equal.  Hopeless,  also,  was  the 
attempt  of  any  one  else  to  render  the  look 
which  he  gave  to  the  betrayed  mother,  when 
her  boy,  again  and  again  replenished  with  ice 
cream  before  company,  still  obtains  new  sup 
plies  by  the  threat,  "  If  you  don't  give  it  to 
me,  I  '11  tell."  On  being  finally  met  with  re 
fusal,  he  shouts  forth  to  the  embarrassed  guests 
the  awful  domestic  mystery,  "  My  new  breeches 
are  made  out  of  the  old  window  curtains ! " 
Stories  that  in  themselves  were  nothing  rose 
to  dramatic  episodes  when  acted  out  by  Holmes. 
Another  of  John  Holmes's  spontaneous  dra 
matic  pictures  was  this.  Something  was  said 
about  the  increasing  number  of  students  who 
failed  to  complete  their  undergraduate  course 
in  the  accustomed  four  years,  but  had  to  be 
dropped  from  class  to  class  before  they  could 
finish  it.  It  was  admitted  that  the  number  of 


JOHN   HOLMES  181 

these  unfortunates  was  increasing,  and  Holmes 
predicted  without  hesitation  that  a  race  of  Har 
vard  students  would  be  ultimately  developed 
who  would  never  get  through  at  all,  but  might 
perhaps  die  at  the  age  of  ninety  on  the  very  day 
before  Commencement,  thus  depriving  the  in 
stitution  of  the  glory  of  their  final  diploma.  In 
his  lively  imagination,  a  group  of  President  and 
Faculty  was  seen  gathered  around  the  bed  of 
the  aged  man,  imploring  him  to  make  the  final 
effort  necessary  to  hold  out  just  one  day  longer. 
"  Think,"  they  said,  "what  an  honor  it  would  be 
to  the  university  to  have  graduated  you  at  last, 
and  what  a  disappointment  should  you  expire 
an  undergraduate  after  all !  Rouse  yourself ! 
Make  one  more  effort !  Live  until  to-morrow, 
and  die  a  Bachelor  of  Arts  !  " 

John  Holmes  was  an  admirable  mimic,  which 
his  brother  Wendell  was  not,  and  he  had  a 
favorite  story  of  a  Yankee  farmer  of  his  ac 
quaintance  who  used  to  preface  a  sentence  by 
five  different  enunciations  of  the  word  "  Well." 
The  first  would  come  lightly,  as  if  finding  the 
question  trivial,  "  Well ! "  The  second  more 
drawlingly,  on  beginning  to  see  the  importance 
of  the  matter,  "  We-ell ! "  The  third  more  drawl 
ingly  still,  but  solemnly,  as  if  grappling  medi 
tatively  with  the  whole  extent  of  the  subject, 
"We-e-ell!"  The  next  impatiently,  relapsing 


182  CONTEMPORARIES 

into  the  vernacular  and  bringing  the  whole 
thing  emphatically  into  the  field  of  action, 
"Wai!"  —  as  if  to  be  settled  now  or  never. 
And  then  at  last  decisively,  as  if  the  case  were 
made  up,  and  no  human  power  could  overrule 
it,  "Well!" 

This  creative  and  dramatic  quality  of  John 
Holmes's  humor  is  vividly  shown  in  his  com 
ment  —  made  in  a  private  letter  to  his  friend 
John  Bartlett  —  on  the  appendix  to  that  gentle 
man's  well-known  "  Shakespeare  Phrase  Book," 
in  which  the  careful  editor  gives  by  way  of 
appendix  eighty  pages  of  "comparative  read 
ings,"  faithfully  setting  down  all  the  Shake 
spearean  lines  from  various  editors,  preserved 
because  rejected  by  him.  Holmes  thus  por 
trays  the  probable  mental  conflicts  of  his  friend 
in  deciding  which  reading  to  adopt,  in  each 
case,  and  which  to  assign  to  what  he  calls  "  the 
wastebasket : "  — 

"  I  am  glad  that  the  brief  episode  of  the 
wastebasket  is  attached  to  the  magnum  opus. 
The  bold  emancipation  of  the  author  from  his 
own  tyranny,  the  ferocious  hurling  of  his  work 
to  apparent  destruction,  the  savage  exultation 
of  the  mob  (of  one),  the  calm  resistance  of  the 
conservative  party  (of  one),  the  return  of  the 
mob  to  reason  and  of  the  tyrant  to  power,  when 
the  outcast  of  the  night  before  is  raised  and 


JOHN    HOLMES  183 

hugged  by  the  repentant  populace,  ...  it  is 
altogether  an  admirable  dramatic  arrangement, 
in  which  a  terrific  combination  of  tragic  ele 
ments  (all  that  the  supposed  spectator  can 
bear)  suddenly  culminates  in  wise  resolution, 
unanimous  action,  and  general  happiness.  Had 
not  the  insensate  mob  changed  its  mind, 

" '  You  had  then  left  unseen  a  wonderful 
piece  of  work.' ' 

To  appreciate  the  following  extract  from 
Lowell's  letters,  it  must  be  remembered  that  in 
the  rural  days  of  Cambridge  the  Holmes  par 
sonage  and  its  surrounding  acres  constituted 
a  considerable  farm,  with  all  the  accompani 
ments  of  garden  lot,  mowing  lot,  large  barn, 
corn  barn,  horse  stable,  cow  stable,  and  dog 
kennel.  Lowell  says  in  a  letter  (Letters,  i. 
3 1 3),  "  Cambridge  boasts  of  two  distinguished 
farmers,  John  Holmes  of  Holmes  Place,  and 
him  who  would  be,  in  the  properly  constituted 
order  of  things,  the  Marquess  of  Thompson  Lot 
with  a/."  (This  is  Lowell  himself,  the  char 
acter  being  taken  from  a  then  favorite  play 
of  Toodles.)  Lowell  goes  on  :  "The  Marquess, 
fearing  that  (since  Squire  Holmes  cultivated 
his  own  estate  with  his  own  hands  and  a  camp 
stool)  his  rival  might  be  in  want  of  food  and 
too  proud  to  confess  it,  generously  resolved  to 
give  him  a  dinner,  which,  to  save  his  feelings, 


1 84  CONTEMPORARIES 

he  adroitly  veiled  with  the  pretense  of  an  agri 
cultural  festival  and  show  of  vegetables."  In 
the  subsequent  narrative,  the  chairman  gives 
the  toast  "  Speed  the  Plough, "  which  is  "  ac 
knowledged  by  Mr.  Holmes  in  a  neat  speech  ;  " 
—  but  the  speech  as  given  is  so  thoroughly 
Lowell's,  and  so  remote  from  Holmes,  by  reason 
of  its  multitude  of  poor  but  ingenious  puns, 
that  the  personal  Holmes  evidently  disappears 
from  the  scene.  John  Holmes's  humor  some 
times,  however,  took  the  form  of  puns,  but 
always  with  an  apology,  while  Lowell  never 
spared  anything  but  the  apology. 

Holmes  was  Lowell's  favorite  guest,  and 
when  he  asks  Howells  in  1869  to  eat  roast  pig 
with  him  on  Saturday  at  half -past  four  p.  M.  — 
an  abnormal  dinner  hour,  now  happily  obsolete 
— he  says  to  him  :  "Your  commensals  will  be 
J.  H.  [John  Holmes],  Charles  Storey  [father  of 
Moorfield  Storey],  and  Professor  [George  M.] 
Lane,  —  all  true  blades  who  will  sit  till  Monday 
morning,  if  needful.  The  pig  is  just  ripe,  and  so 
tender  that  he  would  fall  from  his  tail  if  lifted 
by  it,  like  a  mature  cantaloupe  from  its  stem  " 
(Letters,  i.  3 1 3).  These  were  all  clever  men, 
and  Lowell  must  have  had  his  fill  of  that 
"  Lambish  quintessence  of  John  "  which  he  de 
scribed  in  verse.  Again  on  Christmas  Day, 
1876,  Lowell  writes:  "I  had  expected  my  two 


JOHN    HOLMES  185 

grandsons  to  dinner,  but  the  weather  will  not 
let  them  run  the  risk,  so  I  am  to  have  my  friend 
John  Holmes  (the  best  and  most  delightful  of 
men)  and  a  student  whom  I  found  to  be  without 
any  chance  at  other  than  a  dinner  in  Commons." 
It  was  but  two  or  three  times  in  John 
Holmes's  life  that  he  trusted  himself  in  print, 
and  here  also  he  kept  carefully  on  his  own 
ground,  —  Old  Cambridge.  One  may  have  faith 
fully  perused  Lowell's  delightful  "  Fireside  Trav 
els  "  without  getting  the  very  inmost  glimpse 
of  village  life  in  the  earlier  Cambridge,  unless 
he  has  also  read  John  Holmes's  "  Harvard 
Square  "  in  the  Harvard  Book.  Here  live  again, 
for  instance,  "  P.  &  S.  Snow,"  the  veteran  oyster 
dealers  whom  Lowell  has  immortalized  in  de 
licious  rhyme  ;  but  John  Holmes's  imagination 
goes  beyond  the  dealers  to  the  articles  in  which 
they  dealt,  and  says  of  them,  "The  oysters 
seemed  to  know  the  brothers  personally  as  old 
familiars  of  their  element,  and  appeared  satis 
fied  and  serene  when  they  saw  who  had  forced 
their  doors."  Lowell  speaks  of  the  old  First 
Church,  but  no  one  has  ever  described  like 
Holmes  the  outlet  given  to  youthful  vivacity, 
even  in  Puritan  strongholds,  by  the  dropping 
of  the  pew  seats.  "  The  seats,  which  were  in 
dependent  of  one  another,  were  made  to  fold 
back,  that  their  occupants  might  find  support 


186  CONTEMPORARIES 

against  the  wall  or  the  side  of  the  pew  during 
the  time  of  prayers,  when,  at  that  day,  all  stood 
up;  and  leaves,  suspended  on  the  side  of  the 
pew,  which  could  be  extended  and  supported 
by  an  appropriate  pine  rod,  seemed  to  recall  an 
older  Puritan  time,  when  taking  notes  was  an 
important  part  of  the  exercises.  When  the 
seats  were  let  down,  at  the  close  of  prayer, 
the  effect  was  much  like  that  of  the  abrupt  dis 
charge  of  a  load  of  boards  from  a  cart,  but  with 
more  numerous  percussions.  They  were  low 
ered  every  way  but  quietly.  Childhood  was 
quick  and  energetic,  age  was  slow,  and  between 
them  were  all  modes  of  sublapsarianism.  Per 
haps  they  came  down  more  violently  after  a 
very  long  prayer  than  at  other  times.  It  was  a 
phenomenon,  and  the  only  one  I  recollect,  at 
variance  with  the  very  strict  decorum  observed. 
It  drew  no  attention  whatever." 

Lowell  himself  has  not  described  so  graphi 
cally  as  John  Holmes  the  great  colonial  festival 
which  the  Harvard  Commencement  furnished 
in  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century. 

...  "A  day  or  two  beforehand  the  agent, 
charged  with  that  duty,  measured  the  spaces 
on  the  Common  allotted  by  the  town  for  a  con 
sideration,  to  the  occupants  of  tents,  and  scored 
the  number  of  each  in  the  sod.  Grave  citi 
zens  watched  the  numerals ;  children  circulated 


JOHN    HOLMES  187 

their  reports  with  increase.  The  popular  test 
of  Commencement  was  the  number  of  tents 
erected.  When  the  work  of  construction  be 
gan,  fathers  led  out  little  children  that  they 
might  themselves,  without  reproach,  loiter  near 
the  delightful  tumult.  Selectmen  are  said  to 
have  hovered  around  the  spot  in  a  semi-official 
attitude.  The  inhabitants  of  the  town,  alive  to 
their  responsibility,  prepared,  and  tradition  says 
worthily,  to  bestow  their  hospitalities.  And 
truly  it  was  time  to  be  up  and  doing.  A  man 
might  pass  the  whole  year,  until  Commence 
ment,  without  knowing  the  number  and  value 
of  his  friends.  Then  everybody  and  everything 
turned  up.  A  prodigal  son,  supposed  on  a 
voyage  up  the  Straits,  arrived  on  Monday  by 
coaster  from  Chappequiddick,  to  eat  the  fatted 
calf.  In  the  afternoon  an  unappreciated  rela 
tive,  presumed  to  have  perished  in  the  late  war, 
appeared  with  an  appetite  improved  by  open- 
air  residence  among  the  Indians.  The  more 
remote  affinities  at  this  period  revealed  their 
strength.  On  Tuesday,  after  the  nearer  rela 
tives  had  arrived,  there  might  drop  in  at  even 
ing  a  third  cousin  of  a  wife's  half-brother  from 
Agawam,  or  an  uncle  of  a  brother-in-law's  step 
sister  from  Contoocook,  to  re-knit  the  family 
ties.  The  runaway  apprentice,  who  was  ready 
to  condone  offenses  and  accept  hospitality,  was 


i88  CONTEMPORARIES 

referred  to  the  barn,  as  well  as  the  Indian  from 
Mr.  Wheelock's  Seminary,  whose  equipment 
was  an  Indian  catechism  and  a  bow  and  arrow, 
with  which  latter  he  expected  to  turn  a  fugitive 
penny  by  shooting  at  a  mark  on  the  morrow. 
The  wayward  boy,  over  whose  watery  grave 
Mr.  Sam  Stedman  had  so  many  times  fired  his 
long  ducking-gun  (cannon  being  scarce  in  those 
days),  returned  from  a  truant  visit  to  his  uncle 
on  the  '  New  Hampshire  Grants '  [Vermont]. 
The  College  sloop,  that  shadowy  craft  which 
floats  in  time  indefinitely,  always  arrived  in 
time  for  the  floodtide  on  Tuesday.  The  Water- 
town  lighter  was  uniformly  driven  ashore  on 
Tuesday  evening  by  the  perils  of  the  seas ;  that 
is,  by  the  strong  current  that  prevailed  in  the 
river  about  Commencement  time.  The  captain 
and  crew,  like  judicious  men,  made  it  a  point  to 
improve  their  minds  while  detained  and  always 
attended  the  literary  exercises  on  the  Common." 
We  may  be  sure  that  John  Holmes  describes 
in  full  the  Commencement  procession  of  1750 
and  its  accompanying  services  :  "  The  sober 
academic  colors  were  relieved  by  occasional 
gold-laced  hats  and  coats,  by  a  sprinkling  of  his 
Majesty's  uniforms,  and  by  the  scores  of  silver 
shoe-buckles  which  glistened  in  the  sun  at  every 
footstep,  to  the  delight  of  the  public  and  of  the 
wearers  of  them.  .  .  .  The  President  occupied 


JOHN   HOLMES  189 

the  pulpit,  and  the  Governor  the  great  chair  in 
front ;  the  rest,  with  mutual  congees,  self-sac 
rificing  offers,  and  deprecatory  acceptances  of 
seats,  distributed  themselves  on  the  stage.  The 
cocked  hats  were  hung  on  the  brass-headed 
nails  which  lined  the  beams  projecting  from 
the  wall  between  the  pulpit  and  the  galleries. 
.  .  .  The  [Latin]  Salutatory  goes  off  brilliantly, 
—  that  is  to  say,  nobody  seems  depressed  by  it ; 
the  audience  chats  in  a  lively  manner.  A  Latin 
thesis  is  called  for,  which  goes  rather  heavily, 
but  is  relieved  by  the  arrival  of  old  Judge 
Trowbridge,  who  comes  up  the  outside  stairs, 
and  with  multiplied  attentions  is  seated  on  the 
stage.  He  is  the  most  famous  recondite  old 
lawyer  in  the  Province,  and  has  lost  himself  in 
a  lucubration  this  morning  so  as  to  forget  the 
time.  Another  Latin  thesis  is  helped  off  by  a 
row  at  the  west  door  of  the  church,  at  the  sound 
of  which  young  James  Winthrop  slips  out  and 
witnesses  the  victory  of  the  '  constable  and  six 
men '  over  two  drunken  English  sailors." 

In  describing  the  Commencement  dinner  of 
the  same  period,  Holmes  draws  a  new  and  un 
expected  moral  from  the  creation  of  the  mos 
quito.  "There  was,"  he  says,  "no  great 
affinity  between  the  English  gentleman,  or 
courtier,  of  that  day  and  the  average  New  Eng 
land  colonist.  .  .  .  Two  topics,  under  these  cir- 


190  CONTEMPORARIES 

cumstances,  did  excellent  service,  — the  heat  of 
to-day  and  the  mosquitoes  of  last  night.  On 
these  points  there  was  a  cordial  unanimity,  with 
an  amount  of  circumstantial  difference  that  ex 
tended  the  conversation  most  profitably.  The 
patient  who  tosses  and  kicks  under  the  lancet 
of  the  mosquito,  or,  worse,  listens  to  his  hum, 
as  he  selects  the  spot  for  puncture,  is  not  in 
a  mood  for  reflection.  Let  him,  however,  re 
member  that  the  torment  of  the  night  will  be 
come  a  social  medium  on  the  morrow  to  draw 
him  nearer  friends  and  soften  his  relation  to 
strangers." 

In  those  days  there  was,  in  the  afternoon,  a 
separate  series  of  addresses  and  a  separate  pro 
cession.  "The  afternoon  audience,  we  may 
suppose,  was  largely  composed  of  those  who 
attend  everything  on  principle.  All  reasonable 
people  were  now  in  a  blissful  state.  The  ex 
cellent  Dr.  Appleton,  the  minister  of  the  par 
ish,  walking  in  the  afternoon  procession,  smiled 
unconsciously  on  the  collective  license  of  the 
crowd.  The  rough  village  doctor,  though  wit 
nessing  the  abominable  breach  of  hygienic  law 
everywhere,  felt  the  cheering  influence  of  the 
day,  and  his  old  mare  with  perplexity  missed 
half  her  usual  allowance  of  cowhide.  The  dry, 
skeptical  village  lawyer,  returned  from  his  din 
ner  at  Miss  Chadbourne's  to  his  dusty  office  in 


JOHN   HOLMES  191 

his  best  mood,  prepared  to  deny  everything  ad 
vanced  by  anybody,  and  demand  proof.  On 
the  Common,  the  Natick  Indians,  having  made 
large  gain  by  their  bows  and  arrows,  proceeded 
to  a  retired  spot,  and  silently  and  successfully 
achieved  the  process  of  inebriation." 

For  one  to  whom  the  past  was  thus  vivid,  it 
might  seem  that  the  present  must  be  shadowy 
in  comparison ;  yet  the  latest  visitor,  the  most 
recent  passer-by,  was  to  him  a  figure  equally 
animated  ;  nor  was  any  picture  of  past  or  pre 
sent  so  characteristic  and  original,  after  all,  as 
was  the  inexhaustibly  fertile  mind  from  which 
it  came.  It  is  this  which  gives  to  those  who 
knew  John  Holmes  a  sense  of  loss  so  unique 
and  irreparable.  Men  and  events  will  come  and 
go,  but  we  shall  no  longer  listen  to  hear  what 
he  will  say  about  them ;  it  is  as  if  the  art  of 
instantaneous  photography  had  perished  with 
its  inventor. 


THADDEUS   WILLIAM    HARRIS 

"Were  I  to  be  required  to  say,  in  one  word,  what  is  the  system  of 
Nature,  I  should  say  —  Variety." 

DR.  HARRIS  TO  EDWARD  NEWMAN,  1844. 

ONE  of  the  ablest  of  American  botanists, 
Edward  Tuckerman,  writes  in  respect  to  Dr. 
Harris :  "  Of  other  genuine  naturalists  I  have 
read,  but  he  is  the  only  one  I  ever  knew." 
This  is  hardly  too  strong  a  statement  of  the 
loyalty  entertained  toward  this  eminent  man  by 
those  who  had  the  privilege  of  being  his  pupils 
in  natural  history.  In  him  there  lived  for  us 
the  very  spirit  of  Linnaeus,  or  whatever  name 
best  represents  the  simplest  and  purest  type  of 
the  naturalist.  The  personal  attachment  thus 
won,  the  healthy  influence  thus  exerted,  and 
the  slow  and  gradual  recognition  of  the  merit 
of  his  methods  are  a  form  of  success  more  con 
genial  to  the  temperament  of  Dr.  Harris  than 
would  have  been  any  more  immediate  and  su 
perficial  applauses. 

Thaddeus  William  Harris  was  born  in  Dor 
chester,  Mass.,  November  12,  1795.  He  was 
the  son  of  Thaddeus  Mason  Harris,  D.  D.,  and 


THADDEUS    WILLIAM    HARRIS          193 

Mary  (Dix)  Harris.  The  elder  Dr.  Harris  was 
a  native  of  Charlestown,  Mass.,  born  in  1768, 
graduated  at  Harvard  College  in  1787,  and  was 
librarian  of  that  institution  from  1791  to  1793. 
He  left  that  position  to  be  ordained  over  the 
First  Congregational  Church  in  Dorchester, 
where  he  remained  until  within  a  few  years  of 
his  death,  which  occurred  in  1842.  I  remem 
ber  in  my  boyhood  the  little  quaint  old  man, 
bent  almost  incredibly,  but  still  wearing  a  hale 
aspect,  who  used  to  haunt  the  alcoves  of  the 
old  library  in  Harvard  Hall.  It  was  rumored 
among  us  that  he  had  once  been  appointed  pri 
vate  secretary  to  Washington,  but  had  resigned 
from  illness ;  and  it  was  known  that  he  was 
arranging  and  indexing  for  Mr.  Sparks  the  one 
hundred  and  thirty-two  manuscript  volumes  of 
Washington's  correspondence.  He  was  not 
without  his  poetic  laurels,  too,  since  it  was 
whispered  that  he  had  composed  for  Edward 
Everett's  youthful  recitation  the  verses,  — 

"  You  'd  scarce  expect  one  of  my  age 
To  speak  in  public  on  the  stage." 

He  was,  moreover,  a  learned  antiquarian  and 
divine,  and  had  come  to  natural  history  by  a 
strictly  professional  path  ;  for  besides  his  pro 
per  harvest  of  fifty-eight  occasional  sermons, 
and  seventeen  other  publications,1  he  had  found 

1  See  a  list  of  them  in  an  admirable  memoir  of  the  elder 


194  CONTEMPORARIES 

time  for  an  elaborate  "  Natural  History  of  the 
Bible,"  which  was  published  in  1820,  and  long 
remained  a  standard  work,  both  here  and  in 
Europe.  It  aimed  to  describe  and  identify 
every  animal,  plant,  and  precious  stone  men 
tioned  in  Scripture  ;  and  must  have  evolved,  on 
many  of  these  points,  enough  of  minute  inves 
tigation  to  enlist  the  whole  family  in  the  work. 
And  as  Mrs.  Harris  was  at  the  same  period  a 
diligent  rearer  of  silkworms,  and  supplied  her 
self  for  ten  years  with  sewing-silk  from  their 
labors,  it  is  evident  that  natural  history  must 
have  been  a  topic  of  habitual  household  inter 
est.  It  is  certain  that  at  this  time  (1820),  the 
younger  Dr.  Harris  began  his  permanent  col 
lection  of  insects. 

He  entered  Harvard  College  in  1811,  in  his 
sixteenth  year,  and  graduated,  with  respectable 
rank,  in  1815.  One  of  his  classmates  describes 
him  as  "  a  timid,  sensitive,  rather  nervous  and 
recluse  youth,"  who  was  not  at  that  time  con. 
spicuous  for  his  love  of  natural  history.  There 
was  a  college  society,  called  first  the  "  Lavoise- 
rian,"  and  then  the  "  Hermetic,"  for  the  study 
of  natural  philosophy,  and  especially  of  chemis 
try.  It  is  very  probable  that  Dr.  Harris  was 
inclined  to  this  last  study,  as  he  was  appointed, 

Dr.  Harris,  by  N.  L.  Frothingham,  D.  D.,  in  the  Mass.  Hist. 
Coll.,  4th  series,  II.  130. 


THADDEUS   WILLIAM   HARRIS         195 

some  years  after  his  graduation,  a  member  of 
the  Examining  Committee  in  that  department. 
The  college  afforded  no  direct  instruction  in 
natural  history  at  that  time,  except  in  the  lec 
tures  of  Professor  W.  D.  Peck.  These  were 
accessible  by  a  special  fee,  and  do  not  seem  to 
have  left  a  very  palatable  impression  on  those 
who  heard  them.  Dr.  Harris,  however,  attrib 
utes  to  Dr.  Peck  his  first  interest  in  his  favorite 
study.  "  It  was  this  early  and  much  esteemed 
friend  who  first  developed  my  taste  for  ento 
mology,  and  stimulated  me  to  cultivate  it." 
This  probably  refers,  however,  not  to  college 
days,  but  to  a  renewal  of  intercourse  with  the 
professor,  about  1820.  Professor  Peck  died 
two  years  later,  and  his  manuscripts  were  sub 
mitted  for  examination  to  the  two  Doctors  Har 
ris,  who  reported  adversely  to  the  publication, 
finding  them  apparently  correct  and  faithful, 
but  a  little  behind  the  times.  Yet  Professor 
Peck  was  reputed  a  man  of  real  science  in  his 
day,  and  a  recommendation  of  him  by  Sir  Jo 
seph  Banks  used  to  be  quoted.  His  only  memo 
rial  now  remains  in  the  baptismal  name  of  one 
minute  insect,  the  Xenos  Peckii  of  Kirby,  which 
as  being  at  that  time  the  only  species  of  its 
genus,  and  the  only  genus  of  its  order,  repre 
sented  in  a  certain  degree  the  very  aristocracy 
of  science. 


196  CONTEMPORARIES 

After  his  graduation  Dr.  Harris  devoted  him 
self  to  the  study  of  medicine,  took  his  medical 
degree  in  1820,  and  entered  on  the  practice  of 
his  profession  at  Milton,  in  connection  with  Dr. 
Amos  Holbrook,  whose  daughter  (Catherine) 
he  afterwards  married.  Dr.  Holbrook  was  an 
eminent  practitioner  in  his  day,  being  vice-presi 
dent  of  the  Massachusetts  Medical  Society,  and 
corresponding  member  of  several  foreign  asso 
ciations.  After  two  or  three  years,  Dr.  Harris 
took  an  office  for  himself  in  Dorchester  village, 
near  Milton  Lower  Mills.  I  do  not  know  how 
far  he  became  really  attached  to  his  profession ; 
he  never  refers  to  it  in  his  correspondence,  and 
seems  to  have  entirely  quitted  it  after  his  aca 
demical  appointment,  except  when  he  once  took 
for  a  few  weeks  the  practice  of  Dr.  Plympton, 
during  the  illness  of  that  well  -  known  Cam 
bridge  physician.  It  was  while  he  was  a  resi 
dent  of  Milton  and  Dorchester  that  the  greater 
part  of  his  outdoor  researches  in  entomology 
must  have  been  made.  Yet  he  wrote  to  Pro 
fessor  Hentz  (June  5,  1829),  that  he  "had  but 
very  little  time  to  devote  to  the  study  of  in 
sects."  "  My  leisure  moments/'  he  adds,  "are 
principally  employed  in  collecting  and  preserv 
ing  such  as  I  can  discover,  in  order  to  replenish 
my  cabinet  of  duplicates."  For  this  reason, 
and  from  pecuniary  anxieties,  it  is  evident  that 


THADDEUS   WILLIAM   HARRIS         197 

he  was  quite  ready  to  contemplate  a  change  of 
residence.  For  instance,  when  Professor  Hentz 
was  about  taking  a  professorship  in  an  Alabama 
university,  Dr.  Harris  was  evidently  not  indis 
posed  to  go  with  him.  He  wrote  March  25, 
1829  :  — 

"As  to  the  intimation  respecting  a  profes 
sor's  chair,  I  can  but  repeat  what  I  once  men 
tioned,  that  my  qualifications  are  not  adequate ; 
but  if  the  climate  should  admit,  I  could  pre 
pare  myself  for  the  department  of  obstetrics 
or  materia  medica.  Some  experience  for  ten 
years  in  the  former,  and  my  knowledge  of  bot 
any,  and  necessary  acquaintance  with  the  ma 
nipulation  of  drugs,  would  not  render  it  difficult 
to  attain,  in  a  short  time,  a  tolerable  knowledge 
of  either  of  these  branches." 

Two  months  later  (June  5,  1829)  he  wrote  to 
the  same  friend  :  — 

"  I  am  very  desirous  to  learn  the  issue  of 
your  contemplated  change  of  place.  Such  are 
the  embarrassments  and  anxieties  of  my  pre 
sent  situation,  that  your  hints  in  regard  to 
myself  would  receive  serious  consideration,  — 
especially  if  the  climate,  the  professional  de 
partment,  and  the  emolument  should  coincide 
with  my  wishes.  You  may  not  know  that  my 
friends  endeavored,  some  time  ago,  to  procure 
for  me  an  appointment  as  librarian  at  Harvard 


198  CONTEMPORARIES 

University,  a  situation  which  would  have  suited 
me  exactly  ;  but  unfortunately  the  place  was 
pre-engaged." 

This  refers,  doubtless,  to  the  appointment  of 
Mr.  Benjamin  Peirce  to  the  librarianship  in 
1826.  It  would  appear  from  this  that  Dr.  Har 
ris  had  for  some  time  looked  with  hope  to  this 
appointment,  which  he  finally  received  in  1831, 
on  the  death  of  Mr.  Peirce.  It  would  also  ap 
pear  that  he  found  the  librarianship  attractive 
for  its  own  sake,  and  not  (as  it  was  perhaps 
viewed  by  some  of  his  friends)  as  a  stepping- 
stone  toward  a  professorship  of  natural  history. 
Be  this  as  it  may,  he  accepted  the  post,  and 
held  it  during  the  remaining  twenty-five  years 
of  his  life. 

No  doubt  he  looked  forward  with  delight  to 
the  change.  The  librarian's  salary  was  low,  but 
the  dignity  and  permanence  of  the  new  post 
must  have  appeared  in  agreeable  contrast  to 
the  struggle  for  life  of  a  country  physician, 
whose  very  acquirements  as  a  naturalist  may 
have  impeded  his  professional  career.  Then 
the  methodical  and  accurate  habits  of  Dr.  Har 
ris  promised  to  make  the  daily  routine  of  duty 
agreeable ;  he  had  a  genuine  love  of  antiqua 
rian  research,  though  always  kept  under  by 
the  greater  attractions  of  natural  science ;  and 
he  might  reasonably  hope  for  many  books  and 


THADDEUS   WILLIAM   HARRIS         199 

some  leisure.  In  both  he  was  disappointed ; 
of  leisure  he  had  almost  none,  and  of  books  no 
liberal  supply.  The  library  at  the  time  of  his 
accession  numbered  but  about  thirty  thousand 
volumes,  though  he  left  it  swelled  to  sixty-five 
thousand.  Its  means  of  increase  were  then  ex 
ceedingly  small,  and  the  great  cost  of  works  on 
natural  history  precluded  much  investment  in 
that  direction. 

Dr.  Harris  was  appointed  ere  long  to  a  quasi- 
scientific  post  in  the  college,  in  addition  to  his 
librarianship.  The  professorship  of  natural  his 
tory  was  at  this  time  vacant  for  want  of  funds, 
and  Dr.  Augustus  A.  Gould  gave,  until  1837, 
an  annual  course  of  lectures  on  this  subject  to 
the  senior  class.  On  his  resignation,  Dr.  Harris 
took  his  place  and  had  charge  of  that  depart 
ment  from  February  16,  1837,  till  the  appoint 
ment  of  a  permanent  professor  in  1 842.  I  was 
fortunate  enough  to  be  among  his  pupils.  There 
were  exercises  twice  a  week,  which  included 
recitations  in  Smellie's  "  Philosophy  of  Natural 
History,"  with  occasional  elucidations  and  fa 
miliar  lectures  by  Dr.  Harris.  There  were  also 
special  lectures  on  botany.  This  was  the  only 
foothold  which  natural  history  had  then  secured 
in  what  we  hopefully  called  the  "university." 
Even  these  scanty  lessons  were,  if  I  rightly  re 
member,  a  voluntary  affair ;  we  had  no  "marks  " 


200  CONTEMPORARIES 

for  attendance,  and  no  demerits  for  absence, 
and  they  were  thus  to  a  merely  ambitious  stu 
dent  a  waste  of  time,  so  far  as  college  rank 
was  concerned.  Still  they  proved  so  interest 
ing  that  Dr.  Harris  formed,  in  addition,  a  pri 
vate  class  in  entomology,  to  which  I  also  be 
longed.  It  included  about  a  dozen  young  men 
from  different  college  classes,  who  met  on  one 
evening  of  every  week  at  the  room  where  our 
teacher  kept  his  cabinet,  in  Massachusetts  Hall. 
These  were  very  delightful  exercises,  accord 
ing  to  my  recollection,  though  we  never  got  be 
yond  the  Coleoptera.  Dr.  Harris  was  so  simple 
and  eager,  his  tall,  spare  form  and  thin  face 
took  on  such  a  glow  and  freshness,  he  dwelt 
so  lovingly  on  antennae  and  tarsi,  and  handled 
so  fondly  his  little  insect-martyrs,  that  it  was 
enough  to  make  one  love  this  study  for  life,  be 
yond  all  branches  of  natural  science,  and  I  am 
sure  that  it  had  that  effect  on  me. 

As  one  fruit  of  these  lessons,  several  of  us 
undertook,  during  the  following  year,  to  ar 
range  for  the  Harvard  Natural  History  Society 
its  collection  of  insects,  then  very  much  aug 
mented,  and  only  partially  arranged  by  my  pre 
decessor  in  the  Curatorship  of  Entomology, 
Henry  Bryant,  since  well  known  to  the  world 
of  science.  This  task  kept  us  in  contact  with 
Dr.  Harris ;  we  had  the  aid  of  his  cabinet  in 


THADDEUS   WILLIAM    HARRIS         201 

identifying  the  species ;  but  the  more  we  used 
this  ready  assistance,  the  more  profound  became 
the  wonder  how  Dr.  Harris  himself  had  identi 
fied  them.  There  were  no  manuals,  no  descrip 
tions,  no  figures  accessible  to  us ;  even  in  the 
college  library  there  were  only  a  few  books  on 
tropical  insects,  and  a  few  vast  encyclopaedias, 
which  appeared  to  hold  everything  but  what 
was  wanted.  It  seemed  as  if  a  special  flight 
of  insects  must  have  come  to  Dr.  Harris  from 
the  skies,  all  ready  pinned  and  labeled.  Older 
heads  than  ours  were  equally  perplexed,  and 
the  mystery  was  never  fairly  solved  until  after 
the  death  of  our  dear  preceptor,  and  the  trans 
fer  of  his  cabinet  and  papers  to  the  Boston 
Society  of  Natural  History. 

It  was  then  apparent  by  what  vast  labor  Dr. 
Harris  had  compiled  for  himself  the  literary 
apparatus  of  his  scientific  study.  A  mass  of 
manuscript  books,  systematized  with  French 
method,  but  written  in  the  clearest  of  English 
handwriting,  show  how  he  opened  his  way 
through  the  mighty  maze  of  authorities.  First 
comes,  for  instance,  a  complete  systematic 
index  to  the  butterflies  described  by  Godart  and 
Latreille,  in  the  Encyclopedic  Methodique. 
Every  genus  or  species  is  noted,  with  authority, 
reference,  and  synonyms,  —  the  notes  being 
then  rearranged  alphabetically  and  pasted  into 


202  CONTEMPORARIES 

a  volume,  perhaps  three  thousand  titles  in  all. 
This  was  done  in  1835. 

Then  comes  a  similar  compilation  of  the 
Coleoptera  from  Olivier ;  twenty  foolscap  pages, 
giving  genus,  species,  locality,  and  even  measure 
ments,  to  the  fraction  of  an  inch.  Then  there 
are  three  manuscript  volumes  containing  an 
index  to  the  four  volumes  of  Cramer's  "  Papil- 
lons  Exotiques  ;  "  one  devoted  to  Stoll's  "  Sup 
plement,"  and  two  to  Hiibner's  "  Exotische 
Schmetterlinge."  For  Drury's  "Illustrations 
of  Natural  History"  there  are  two  of  these 
elaborate  indices,  made  at  different  periods  ; 
one  based  on  the  original  edition  in  1770-73, 
and  the  other  on  Westwood's  reprint  of  1837. 
So  beautifully  executed  is  all  this  laborious 
work,  that  it  is  still  as  easily  accessible  as  print, 
though  the  earlier  sheets  are  yellow  and  torn. 
The  Natural  History  Society  thus  possesses  not 
merely  the  results  of  Dr.  Harris's  researches, 
but  the  very  tools  which  he  himself  forged  for 
their  prosecution. 

This  immense  preliminary  labor  always 
brings  with  it  some  compensation  to  the  iso 
lated  explorer,  in  the  thorough  drill  it  implies. 
"  Writing  maketh  an  exact  man."  But  the  per 
son  who  will  undertake  such  labor  is  generally 
exact  by  nature,  and  Dr.  Harris,  at  any  rate, 
needed  no  such  drudgery  to  fit  him  for  the 


THADDEUS    WILLIAM    HARRIS         203 

higher  work  of  science.  Yet  there  is  an  in 
estimable  moral  in  his  labor  for  our  younger 
generation  of  savants,  and  the  saying  of  Rivarol 
that  "  genius  is  only  great  patience  "  had  never 
a  better  illustration. 

In  this  destitution  of  books  and  cabinets, 
there  was  another  compensation  which  gave  to 
Dr.  Harris  a  more  practical  satisfaction.  The 
conditions  of  a  new  country,  implying  these 
drawbacks,  imply  also  a  great  wealth  of  mate 
rial.  In  older  countries  it  is  rare  to  discover  a 
new  species  ;  it  is  something  to  detect  even  a 
new  habitat.  But  these  lonely  American  ento 
mologists  seem,  as  one  reads  their  correspond 
ence,  like  so  many  scientific  Robinson  Crusoes, 
each  with  the  insect-wealth  of  a  new  island  at 
his  disposal.  They  are  monarchs  of  all  they 
survey.  With  what  affluence  they  exhibit  their 
dozens  of  undescribed  species  ;  with  what  auto 
cratic  power  they  divide  and  recombine  genera ! 
How  ardently  writes  Hentz  to  Harris,  "  Oh ! 
why  must  we  live  at  such  a  distance  from  each 
other?  What  pleasures  we  might  enjoy  to 
gether."  Or,  "  Mourn  no  longer  for  the  single 
ness  or  solitude  of  your  Amphicoma  vulpina ! 
I  have  found  another."  Yet  they  were  richer 
for  the  loneliness,  and  perhaps  it  was  better 
that  Massachusetts  and  Carolina,  even  in  scien 
tific  jurisdiction,  should  remain  at  a  reasonable 


204  CONTEMPORARIES 

distance.  Had  these  students  shared  one  en 
tomological  region,  they  would  have  had  less 
wealth  to  interchange. 

Nothing  among  the  papers  of  Dr.  Harris  con 
tains  so  much  of  his  scientific  biography  as  a 
letter  written  by  him  to  Dr.  D.  H.  Storer  of 
Boston,  from  which  I  shall  therefore  take  ample 
extracts. 

CAMBRIDGE,  November  2,  1836. 

DEAR  SIR  :  Your  kind  note  will  cause  you  the 
trouble  of  reading  a  long  answer,  if  indeed  you 
can  spare  the  time  to  do  so.  My  plans  are  by  no 
means  so  nearly  matured  as  you  seem  to  imagine, 
nor  indeed  is  there  any  very  great  chance  of  the 
object  of  my  wishes  being  speedily  accomplished. 
The  want  of  a  manual  of  American  entomology 
struck  me  very  forcibly  fifteen  years  ago,  when 
I  was  turning  some  of  my  attention  to  the 
study  of  insects,  and  this  want  greatly  impeded 
my  progress.  There  were  then  very  few  per 
sons  who  paid  any  attention  to  entomology  in 
this  country  ;  none  of  them,  excepting  Professor 
Peck,  were  then  known  to  me  ;  and  the  infor 
mation  which  I  could  have  gathered  from  him 
was  suddenly  lost  to  me  by  his  death.  Some 
time  afterwards  I  became  known  to  Mr.  Say 
through  our  mutual  acquaintance,  Professor 
Nuttall,  and  a  correspondence  was  continued,  at 
protracted  intervals  it  is  true,  between  us  till  his 


THADDEUS   WILLIAM   HARRIS         205 

decease.  I  often  urged  Mr.  Say  to  prepare  a 
manual  which  would  serve  for  American  in 
sects,  as  Pursh's  Flora  and  Eaton's  Manual  did 
for  plants,  and  he  assured  me  that  he  was  col 
lecting  materials  for  the  purpose.  The  de 
scribing  of  an  immense  number  of  new  or  sup 
posed  new  species  occupied  all  the  time  that 
he  could  give  to  entomology,  and  I  do  not  find 
among  his  papers  anything  like  an  outline  or 
commencement  of  the  desired  work. 

In  the  meanwhile  I  had  formed  the  idea  of  a 
local  fauna  insectorum,  which  should  include 
only  the  species  common  in  this  vicinity,  and  I 
began  to  write  descriptions  of  these  species, 
but  found  myself  embarrassed  for  the  want  of 
books.  This  difficulty  rather  increased,  or  ap 
peared  of  more  importance,  as  my  knowledge 
of  species  was  enlarged,  and  I  soon  found  my 
self  in  possession  of  a  very  large  number  of 
insects,  which  could  not,  with  any  propriety,  be 
arranged  in  any  of  the  genera  described  in  my 
books.  To  supply  myself  with  all  the  works 
necessary  for  determining  these  species  and  re 
ducing  them  to  their  proper  genera,  required  a 
much  larger  sum  of  money  than  I  could  com 
mand,  and  I  have  been  compelled  to  wait  even 
till  this  time  without  having  my  wants  in  this  re 
spect  supplied.  In  the  meanwhile  some  of  my  de 
scriptions  were  published  in  the  "  New  England 


206  CONTEMPORARIES 

Farmer,"  and  the  series  would  have  been  con 
tinued  there  if  I  could  have  hoped  to  excite  any 
interest  in  the  science  among  those  who  had 
the  power,  if  not  the  inclination,  to  aid  it. 

The  lectures  which  I  was  called  upon  to  de 
liver  before  the  Natural  History  Society  in 
Boston  gave  a  different  direction  to  my  studies 
for  a  while ;  but  about  that  time  I  wrote  an 
introduction,  or  rather  made  something  like  a 
systematic  abstract  from  the  scientific  part 
of  Kirby  and  Spence's  Entomology  on  the 
subject  of  the  external  anatomy,  transforma 
tions,  and  different  states  of  insects,  which  I 
supposed  it  would  be  necessary  to  prefix  to  my 
local  fauna.  Additions  to  this  and  to  the  de 
scriptive  part  of  the  contemplated  work  have 
been  made  at  subsequent  periods,  but  still  a 
large  part  of  the  labor  remains  to  be  done.  I 
have  no  idea  how  large  a  book  it  would  make 
when  finished,  nor  do  I  see  any  prospect  of 
my  being  able  at  present  to  finish  it  and  indeed 
I  have  nearly  abandoned  all  hope  of  bringing  it 
to  a  successful  termination. 

The  difficulties  met  with,  at  length  led  me 
to  think  of  some  means  of  making  entomo 
logy  popular,  and  I  looked  to  the  young  as  the 
proper  subjects  to  begin  with.  With  the  hope 
that  by  exciting  a  taste  among  children  for 
this  branch  of  natural  history,  the  parents 


THADDEUS   WILLIAM   HARRIS         207 

might  become  interested  also,  I  have  rewritten 
my  introduction  in  plain  and  simple  language, 
divested  as  much  as  possible  of  all  hard  words, 
and  intend  to  add  to  it  brief  descriptions  of 
some  of  our  most  common  insects.  This  you 
may  think  is  small  business,  but  I  hope  it  may 
at  least  be  useful  and  entertaining  to  those  for 
whom  it  is  intended. 

Dr.  Pickering  of  Philadelphia  some  months 
ago  urged  me  to  undertake  a  synopsis  of  Amer 
ican  insects,  and  said  so  much  on  this  subject 
that  I  was  induced  to  take  his  proposition  seri 
ously  into  consideration.  I  then  wrote  to  him 
that  if  he  would  examine  Say's  insects  for  me, 
and  answer  such  inquiries  as  I  might  find  ne 
cessary  to  make  respecting  the  species  con 
tained  in  his  cabinet,  I  would  undertake  to 
make  "a  descriptive  catalogue  of  the  insects 
named  in  the  second  edition  of  Professor  Hitch, 
cock's  Report  on  the  Geology,  etc.,  of  Massa 
chusetts,"  but  I  could  promise  nothing  more  • 
for  I  was  determined  not  to  undertake  to  de 
scribe  any  insects  but  those  which  I  had  before 
my  own  eyes.  Hereupon  Dr.  Pickering  obtained 
leave  of  the  Academy  of  Natural  Sciences  to 
send  me  the  whole  of  Say's  collections,  only 
stipulating  that  I  should  put  them  in  good 
order,  and  return  them  in  a  condition  to  be 
preserved  after  I  had  examined  and  arranged 


208  CONTEMPORARIES 

them.  They  arrived  about  the  middle  of  July, 
but  on  examination  were  found  to  be  in  a  de 
plorable  condition,  most  of  the  pins  having  be 
come  loose,  the  labels  detached,  and  the  insects 
themselves  without  heads,  antennae,  and  legs,  or 
devoured  by  destructive  larvae,  and  ground  to 
powder  by  the  perilous  shakings  which  they 
had  received  in  their  transportation  from  New 
Harmony.  This  irremediable  destruction  has 
in  great  measure  defeated  my  expectation  of 
deriving  benefit  from  examining  the  specimens 
and  comparing  them  with  those  in  my  own  col 
lection,  and  in  that  of  Professor  Hentz.  .  .  . 

Mr.  Hentz's  collection  of  insects  is  a  most 
capital  and  valuable  one ;  it  proves  on  exam 
ination  to  be  far  better  than  I  had  anticipated. 
I  am  sorely  disappointed  and  mortified  in  not 
having  been  able  to  raise  subscriptions  enough 
to  pay  for  it,  and  for  the  beautiful  and  useful 
works  of  Olivier  and  Voet  which  accompanied  it. 

In  spite  of  the  closing  sentence  of  this  letter, 
it  appears  that  the  books  and  cabinet  of  Pro 
fessor  Hentz  were  finally  paid  for  (the  price 
being  $1350),  though  mainly  through  the  per 
sonal  efforts  of  Dr.  Harris.  Professor  Hentz 
was  of  French  birth,  but  American  by  adop 
tion,  and  it  is  surprising  to  find  that  his  name 
does  not  occur  in  our  encyclopaedias,  except  in 


THADDEUS   WILLIAM   HARRIS         209 

connection  with  his  wife,  well  known  as  a  nov 
elist.  He  has  not  even  the  meagre  mention 
which  these  works  assign  to  those  other  pio 
neers  of  American  entomology,  Say  and  the 
elder  Le  Conte.  They,  with  Melsheimer,  were 
the  early  compeers  of  Dr.  Harris,  whether  they 
were  or  were  not  his  peers  ;  while  his  chief  aid 
in  collecting  seems  to  have  come  from  his  friend 
and  classmate,  Rev.  L.  W.  Leonard  of  Dublin, 
N.  H.  In  truth,  the  number  who  seriously  ap 
plied  themselves  to  this  science,  in  those  days, 
might  almost  have  been  counted  upon  one's 
fingers.  His  foreign  correspondence,  when  it 
came,  gave  more  substantial  assistance,  and  I 
especially  remember  the  zeal  aroused  in  Cam 
bridge  by  the  visit  of  Mr.  Edward  Doubleday. 

Yet  the  society  of  accomplished  foreign  nat 
uralists  perhaps  made  Dr.  Harris  feel  his  own 
loneliness  the  more.  He  writes  (September 
23,  1839)  to  Mr.  Doubleday:  — 

"  You  have  never,  and  can  never  know  what 
it  is  to  be  alone  in  your  pursuits,  to  want  the 
sympathy  and  the  aid  and  counsel  of  kindred 
spirits  ;  you  are  not  compelled  to  pursue  sci 
ence  as  it  were  by  stealth,  and  to  feel  all  the 
time,  while  so  employed,  that  you  are  exposing 
yourself  if  discovered  to  the  ridicule,  perhaps, 
at  least  to  the  contempt,  of  those  who  cannot 
perceive  in  such  pursuits  any  practical  and  use- 


210  CONTEMPORARIES 

f ul  results.  But  such  has  been  my  lot,  —  and 
you  can  therefore  form  some  idea  how  grateful 
to  my  feelings  must  be  the  privilege  of  an  in 
terchange  of  views  and  communication  with  the 
more  favored  votaries  of  science  in  another 
land." 

Dr.  Harris  prepared  his  catalogues  of  insects 
as  laboriously  as  he  made  his  indices  of  books. 
They  were  made  on  the  plan  of  the  card  cata 
logues  now  used  in  libraries,  upon  uniform 
pieces  of  paper,  three  or  four  inches  square, 
which  he  afterwards  tied  in  bundles  and  care 
fully  labeled.  Each  card  contained  the  name 
of  the  insect,  with  synonyms  and  authorities, 
and  the  number  it  bore  in  his  catalogue,  —  but 
no  description.  Mr.  Say's  collection  was  cata 
logued  by  Dr.  Harris  in  the  same  manner. 
Most  of  this  sort  of  work  was  apparently  done 
in  1837,  and  all  these  manuscripts  are  in  pos 
session  of  the  Boston  Society.  This  institution 
also  holds  copies  of  almost  all  his  entomological 
letters,  transcribed  with  a  neatness  and  clear 
ness  peculiarly  his  own. 

His  entomological  cabinet  —  of  which  lie 
wrote  to  Mr.  Westermann,  February  22,  1842, 
"My  collection  is  not  only  the  best,  but  the 
only  general  one  of  North  American  insects  in 
this  country"  —  is  now  in  possession  of  the 
same  association.  He  wrote  of  this  cabinet  to 


THADDEUS   WILLIAM   HARRIS         211 

Mr.  C.  J.  Ward  of  Ohio,  March  8,  1837,  as  fol 
lows  :  — 

"  My  object  in  making  a  collection,  and  for 
this  purpose  asking  the  aid  of  my  friends,  has 
not  been  merely  personal  gratification  ;  it  has 
been  my  desire  to  add  something  to  the  cause 
of  science  in  this  country.  .  .  .  Even  should 
death  surprise  me  before  the  results  of  my 
labors  are  before  the  public,  I  shall  leave  an 
extensive,  well  arranged  and  named  collection, 
which,  from  the  care  bestowed  upon  it,  will  be 
in  a  condition  for  preservation,  and  will  remain 
as  a  standard  of  comparison  when  I  am  gone. 
You  will  judge  of  the  importance  and  value  of 
such  a  collection  when  I  assure  you  that  Mr. 
Say's  cabinet  does  not  contain  one  half  of  the 
species  which  he  has  described ;  of  the  insects 
in  it,  many  are  without  names,  and  all  more  or 
less  mutilated,  and  so  badly  preserved  that  most 
of  them  are  now  absolutely  worthless." 

The  value  thus  claimed  for  this  collection 
is  not  too  great.  The  delicate  and  systematic 
care  with  which  Dr.  Harris  preserved  his  in 
sects  has  secured  for  them  a  permanent  useful 
ness.  It  is  well  known  that  no  class  of  speci 
mens  in  natural  history  requires  such  watchful 
pains.  Almost  all  his  American  insects  remain 
labeled  and  arranged  as  he  left  them,  thus  fix 
ing  firmly  and  indisputably  every  step  he  made 


212  CONTEMPORARIES 

in  their  classification.  His  foreign  collection 
was  almost  ruined  before  it  came  into  posses 
sion  of  the  Natural  History  Society,  and  that 
of  Professor  Hentz  was  long  since  almost  to 
tally  destroyed. 

Yet  with  all  this  care  in  his  indoor  labors,  no 
man  knew  better  than  Dr.  Harris  that  the  best 
work  of  a  naturalist  must  be  done  out  of  doors. 
He  had  few  leisure  hours,  and  even  the  blessed 
summer  vacation  must  be  largely  devoted  to  the 
annual  examination  of  the  dusty  library.  But 
his  minute  observations  on  insect  transforma 
tion  still  remain  something  extraordinary,  and 
many  an  experienced  entomologist  has  won 
dered  how  or  where  Dr.  Harris  traced  from  the 
egg  the  varied  forms  of  some  little  insect  which 
others  hardly  knew  in  its  completeness.  His 
rare  skill  with  the  pencil  aided  him  in  this  work, 
as  in  his  studies  of  classification.  As  he  learned 
to  classify  butterflies  by  drawing  the  nervures 
of  their  wings,  so  he  fixed  by  copying  each  suc 
cessive  stage  of  development.  His  excursions, 
too,  though  rare,  were  effectual ;  he  had  the  quick 
step,  the  roving  eye  and  the  prompt  fingers  of 
a  born  naturalist ;  he  could  convert  his  um 
brella  into  a  net,  and  his  hat  into  a  collecting- 
box  ;  he  prolonged  his  quest  into  the  night  with 
a  lantern,  and  into  November  by  searching  be 
neath  the  bark  of  trees.  Every  great  discovery 


THADDEUS   WILLIAM   HARRIS         213 

was  an  occasion  for  enthusiasm,  and  it  seemed 
the  climax  of  his  life  when  he  found  for  the 
first  time,  on  August  5,  1840,  the  larvae  of  the 
southern  butterfly,  Papilio  Philenor,  on  a  shrub 
in  the  Botanic  Garden.1  He  had  previously 
written  of  it  to  Hentz — February  18,  1838 
—  that  "this  insect  must  belong  to  a  type  of 
which  there  is  no  other  in  the  United  States." 
I  very  well  remember  that  he  gave  me  one  of 
his  few  specimens,  and  when  I  deposited  the 
lovely  butterfly  in  the  cabinet  of  the  Harvard 
Natural  History  Society,  I  felt  as  if  I  had 
founded  a  professorship. 

But  the  zeal  of  Dr.  Harris  was  not  confined 
to  entomology ;  it  extended  to  all  branches  of 
zoology,  and  to  botany,  too.  Indeed,  this  was 
his  favorite  study  next  to  that  of  insects,  and 
he  left  in  manuscript  an  elaborate  monograph  of 
the  natural  order  Cucurbitaceae.  I  remember 
the  perennial  eagerness  with  which  he  urged 
upon  us,  each  spring,  to  rediscover  the  Coral- 
lorhiza  verna  in  a  certain  field  near  the  Obser 
vatory.  It  had  been  found  there  once,  and  once 
only,  by  my  classmate,  Dr.  Woodward.  It  had 
certainly  been  found  —  and  yet  it  seemed  im 
probable  that  it  should  have  been  found,  and  it 
was  never  found  again,  —  and  Dr.  Harris's  eyes 
would  always  kindle  when  the  little  flower  was 

1  See  p.  147  following. 


214  CONTEMPORARIES 

mentioned,  and  he  would  ponder,  and  debate, 
and  state  over  and  over  again  the  probabilities 
and  improbabilities,  and  discuss  the  possibility 
of  some  error  in  the  precise  location,  and  draw 
little  plans  of  that  field  and  the  adjoining  fields, 
and  urge  us  on  to  the  pursuit  or  cheer  us  when 
drooping  and  defeated,  until  it  seemed  as  if  the 
quest  after  the  Holy  Grail  was  a  thing  insignifi 
cant  and  uninspiring  compared  with  the  search 
for  that  plain  little  orchid.  This  was  the  true 
spirit  of  the  observer,  —  appreciation  of  the  un 
speakable  value  of  a  fact. 

Still  the  certainty  remains  that  for  all  pro 
ductive  purposes  of  natural  history  the  last 
fifteen  years  of  his  life  yielded  constantly  less 
and  less.  Genius  works  many  miracles,  but 
it  cannot  secure  leisure  for  science  to  a  man 
who  has  twelve  children,  no  private  means,  and 
the  public  library  of  a  university  to  administer. 
As  the  library  grew  larger,  his  opportunities 
grew  less,  and  it  is  pathetic  to  read  in  his  cor 
respondence  the  gradual  waning  of  his  hopes  of 
release. 

The  Professorship  of  Natural  History  in  the 
University,  which  had  remained  vacant  for  want 
of  funds  since  1834,  was  filled  (April  20,  1842) 
by  the  appointment  of  Dr.  Asa  Gray.  During 
this  interval  the  duties  of  the  department  had 
been  partly  discharged  by  Dr.  Harris,  and  it 


THADDEUS    WILLIAM    HARRIS         215 

was  inevitable  that  he  and  his  friends  should 
indulge  a  hope  of  his  permanent  appointment. 
The  matter  was  the  subject  of  much  conversa 
tion  at  the  time,  and  is  several  times  mentioned 
in  his  more  familiar  correspondence.  It  was 
fortunate  that  the  very  eminent  claims  of  Dr. 
Gray,  and  the  especial  propriety  of  selecting  a 
botanist  to  take  charge  of  the  Botanical  Gar 
den,  relieved  the  appointment  from  all  appear 
ance  of  discourtesy  to  Dr.  Harris.  But  all  lovers 
of  science  must  regret  that  no  way  was  found  of 
securing  for  its  exclusive  benefit  the  maturity 
of  a  naturalist  so  gifted. 

In  spite  of  all  obstacles,  Dr.  Harris  always 
contributed  very  largely  to  scientific,  agricul 
tural,  and  other  periodicals,  and  a  catalogue 
of  these  papers  —  more  or  less  complete  —  is 
appended  to  the  volume  of  his  letters  edited 
by  Dr.  S.  H.  Scudder.  He  prepared  in  1831 
the  catalogue  of  insects  appended  to  Hitch 
cock's  Massachusetts  Geological  Report.  In 
the  condition  of  American  science  at  that  day, 
it  was  a  work  of  inestimable  value,  though  his 
only  material  compensation  was  one  copy  of 
the  Report  and  several  copies  of  the  Appendix. 
At  a  later  period  he  was  appointed  by  the  State 
as  one  of  a  scientific  commission  for  a  more 
thorough  geological  and  botanical  survey.  In 
this  capacity  he  prepared  his  "  Report  on  In- 


216  CONTEMPORARIES 

sects  Injurious  to  Vegetation,"  first  published 
in  1841,  reprinted  by  himself  under  the  name  of 
"Treatise,"  instead  of  "Report,"  in  1842,  and 
again  in  a  revised  form  in  1852.  The  whole 
sum  received  by  him,  from  the  State,  for  this 
labor,  was  one  hundred  and  seventy-five  dollars. 
After  his  death  the  book  was  reprinted  by  the 
State  in  an  admirable  form,  with  engravings,  and 
it  is  upon  it  that  his  scientific  reputation  will 
mainly  rest. 

Dr.  Harris  died  on  the  i6th  of  January,  1856, 
at  the  age  of  sixty.  His  life,  with  whatever 
disappointments  and  drawbacks,  must  not  be 
regarded  as  a  sad  one.  It  was  certainly  a  great 
loss  both  to  himself  and  the  world  that  the 
maturity  of  his  powers  should  have  been  given 
to  anything  but  natural  history ;  yet  the  work 
which  was  assigned  him  was  not  uncongenial, 
except  by  comparison.  As  he  could  not  be 
wholly  a  naturalist,  he  found  enjoyment  in  be 
ing  a  librarian.  His  father  had  held  the  same 
office,  almost  to  the  year  of  his  own  birth,  and 
he  seemed  born  with  the  librarian's  instinct  for 
alcoves  and  pamphlets  and  endless  genealogies. 
He  had  in  preparation  a  very  elaborate  genea 
logical  history  of  the  Mason  family,  and  was 
often  consulted  as  an  expert  upon  such  mat 
ters.  He  kept  his  official  records  with  exquisite 
accuracy,  and  described  his  methods  to  other 


THADDEUS   WILLIAM   HARRIS         217 

librarians  as  lovingly  as  if  he  were  describing  a 
chrysalis.  To  that,  indeed,  the  college  library 
of  those  days  had  much  resemblance. 

The  steady  growth  of  Dr.  Harris's  reputa 
tion  is  not  due  alone  to  his  position  as  pioneer 
in  American  science  during  its  barest  period. 
It  has  grown  because  he  proves  to  have  united 
qualities  that  are  rare  in  any  period.  He  com 
bined  a  fidelity  that  never  shrank  from  the 
most  laborious  details  with  an  intellectual  ac 
tivity  that  always  looked  beyond  details  to 
principles.  No  series  of  observations  made 
by  him  ever  needed  revision  or  verification  by 
another ;  and  yet  his  mind  always  looked  in 
stinctively  towards  classification  and  generali 
zation.  He  had  also  those  scientific  qualities 
which  are  moral  qualities  as  well  ;  he  had  the 
modesty  and  unselfishness  of  science,  and  he 
had  what  may  be  called  its  chivalry.  He  would 
give  whole  golden  days  of  his  scanty  summer 
vacations  to  arranging  and  labeling  the  collec 
tions  of  younger  entomologists.  And  it  roused 
all  the  wrath  of  which  his  soul  was  capable 
when  even  a  rival  was  wronged,  as  when  De- 
jean  ignored  Say's  descriptions  because  he  had 
not  learned  English  enough  to  read  them. 

I  remember  his  once  holding  up  to  us,  as 
the  true  type  of  a  scientific  reputation,  that  of 
Robert  Brown,  supreme  among  botanists,  yet 


218  CONTEMPORARIES 

unknown  even  by  name  to  all  the  world  beside. 
More  fortunate  than  Robert  Brown,  Dr.  Harris 
combined  with  this  high  aristocracy  of  science 
a  peculiar  capacity  of  practical  application,  and 
has  left  a  rare  example  of  the  scientific  and  the 
popular  spirit  in  one. 


A  VISIT  TO  JOHN  BROWN'S  HOUSE 
HOLD   IN   1859! 

THE  traveler  into  the  enchanted  land  of  the 
Adirondacks  has  his  choice  of  two  routes  from 
Keeseville  to  the  Lower  Saranac  Lake,  where 
his  outdoor  life  is  to  begin.  The  one  least  fre 
quented  and  most  difficult  should  be  selected, 
for  it  has  the  grandest  mountain  pass  that 
the  Northern  States  can  show.  After  driving 
twenty-two  miles  of  mountain  road  from  Keese 
ville,  past  wild  summits  bristling  with  stumps, 
and  through  villages  where  every  other  man  is 
black  from  the  iron  foundry,  and  every  alter 
nate  one  black  from  the  charcoal  pit,  your  path 
way  makes  a  turn  at  the  little  hamlet  of  Wil 
mington,  and  you  soon  find  yourself  facing  a 
wall  of  mountain,  with  only  glimpses  of  one 
wild  gap,  through  which  you  must  penetrate. 
In  two  miles  more  you  have  passed  the  last 
house  this  side  the  Notch,  and  you  then  drive 
on  over  a  rugged  way,  constantly  ascending, 
with  no  companion  but  the  stream  which  rip 
ples  and  roars  below.  Soon  the  last  charcoal 

1  Reprinted  without   alteration   from   Redpath's   Life  of 
Captain  John  Brown,  1859. 


220  CONTEMPORARIES 

clearing  is  past,  and  thick  woods  of  cedar  and 
birch  close  around  you  :  the  high  mountain  on 
your  right  comes  nearer  and  nearer,  and  close 
beside,  upon  your  left,  are  glimpses  of  a  wall, 
black  and  bare  as  iron,  rising  sheer  for  four 
hundred  feet  above  your  head.  Coming  from 
the  soft  marble  country  of  Vermont,  and  from 
the  pale  granite  of  Massachusetts,  there  seems 
something  weird  and  forbidding  in  this  utter 
blackness.  On  your  left  the  giant  wall  now 
appears  nearer  —  now  retreats  again  ;  on  your 
right  foams  the  merry  stream,  breaking  into 
graceful  cascades  —  and  across  it  the  great 
mountain  Whiteface,  seamed  with  slides.  Now 
the  woods  upon  your  left  are  displaced  by  the 
wall,  almost  touching  the  roadside  ;  against  its 
steep  abruptness  scarcely  a  shrub  can  cl'mg, 
scarcely  a  fern  flutter  —  it  takes  your  breath 
away  ;  but  five  miles  of  perilous  driving  con 
duct  you  through  it ;  and  beyond  this  stern 
passway,  this  cave  of  iron,  lie  the  lovely  lakes 
and  mountains  of  the  Adirondacks,  and  the 
homestead  of  John  Brown. 

The  Notch  seems  beyond  the  world,  North 
Elba  and  its  half-dozen  houses  are  beyond  the 
Notch,  and  there  is  a  wilder  little  mountain 
road  which  rises  beyond  North  Elba.  But  the 
house  we  seek  is  not  even  on  that  road,  but 
behind  it  and  beyond  it ;  you  ride  a  mile  or 


JOHN    BROWN'S    HOUSEHOLD          221 

two,  then  take  down  a  pair  of  bars ;  beyond  the 
bars,  faith  takes  you  across  a  half-cleared  field, 
through  the  most  difficult  of  wood  paths,  and 
after  half  a  mile  of  forest  you  come  out  upon 
a  clearing.  There  is  a  little  frame  house,  un- 
painted,  set  in  a  girdle  of  black  stumps,  and 
with  all  heaven  about  it  for  a  wider  girdle  ;  on  a 
high  hill-side,  forests  on  north  and  west,  —  the 
glorious  line  of  the  Adirondacks  on  the  east, 
and  on  the  south  one  slender  road  leading  off  to 
Westport,  —  a  road  so  straight  that  you  could 
sight  a  United  States  marshal  for  five  miles. 

There  stands  the  little  house  with  no  orna 
ment  or  relief  about  it  —  it  needs  none  with 
the  setting  of  mountain  horizon.  Yes,  there  is 
one  decoration  which  at  once  takes  the  eye,  and 
which,  stern  and  misplaced  as  it  would  seem 
elsewhere,  seems  appropriate  here.  It  is  a 
strange  thing  to  see  any  thing  so  old,  where 
all  the  works  of  man  are  new !  but  it  is  an 
old,  mossy,  time-worn  tombstone  —  not  mark 
ing  any  grave,  not  set  in  the  ground,  but 
resting  against  the  house  as  if  its  time  were 
either  past  or  not  yet  come.  Both  are  true  — 
it  has  a  past  duty  and  a  future  one.  It  bears 
the  name  of  Captain  John  Brown,  who  died 
during  the  Revolution,  eighty-three  years  ago  ; 
it  was  brought  hither  by  his  grandson  bearing 
the  same  name  and  title ;  the  latter  caused  to 


222  CONTEMPORARIES 

be  inscribed  upon  it,  also,  the  name  of  his  son 
Frederick,  "  murdered  at  Osawatomie  for  his 
adherence  to  the  cause  of  freedom  "  (so  reads 
the  inscription)  ;  and  he  himself  has  said,  for 
years,  that  no  other  tombstone  should  mark  his 
own  grave. 

For  two  years,  now,  that  stone  has  stood 
there.  No  oath  has  been  taken  upon  it,  no 
curses  been  invoked  upon  it.  It  marks  the 
abode  of  a  race  who  do  not  curse.  But  morn 
ing  and  noon,  as  the  sons  have  gone  out  to 
their  work  on  that  upland  farm,  they  have 
passed  by  it ;  the  early  light  over  the  Adiron- 
dacks  has  gilded  it,  the  red  reflection  of  sun 
set  has  glowed  back  upon  it  ;  its  silent  appeal 
has  perpetually  strengthened  and  sanctified  that 
home  —  and  as  the  two  lately  wedded  sons 
went  forth  joyfully  on  their  father's  call  to  keep 
their  last  pledge  at  Harper's  Ferry,  they  issued 
from  that  doorway  between  their  weeping  wives 
on  the  one  side  and  that  ancestral  stone  upon 
the  other. 

The  farm  is  a  wild  place,  cold  and  bleak. 
It  is  too  cold  to  raise  corn  there ;  they  can 
scarcely,  in  the  most  favorable  seasons,  obtain 
a  few  ears  for  roasting.  Stock  must  be  win 
tered  there  nearly  six  months  in  every  year.  I 
was  there  on  the  first  of  November  ;  the  ground 
was  snowy,  and  winter  had  apparently  begun, 


JOHN    BROWN'S    HOUSEHOLD         223 

and  it  would  last  till  the  middle  of  May.  They 
never  raise  anything  to  sell  off  that  farm,  ex 
cept  sometimes  a  few  fleeces.  It  was  well,  they 
said,  if  they  raised  their  own  provisions,  and 
could  spin  their  own  wool  for  clothing. 

Do  you  ask  why  they  live  in  such  a  bleak 
spot  ?  With  John  Brown  and  his  family  there 
is  a  reason  for  everything,  and  it  is  always  the 
same  reason.  Strike  into  their  lives  anywhere, 
and  you  find  the  same  firm  purpose  at  bottom, 
and  to  the  widest  questioning  the  same  prompt 
answer  comes  ringing  back,  —  the  very  motto 
of  the  tombstone,  —  "  For  adherence  to  the 
cause  of  freedom."  The  same  purpose,  nay, 
the  selfsame  project  that  sent  John  Brown  to 
Harper's  Ferry  sent  him  to  the  Adirondacks. 

Twenty  years  ago  John  Brown  made  up  his 
mind  that  there  was  an  irrepressible  conflict 
between  freedom  and  slavery,  and  that  in  that 
conflict  he  must  take  his  share.  He  saw  at  a 
glance,  moreover,  what  the  rest  of  us  are  only 
beginning  to  see,  even  now  —  that  slavery  must 
be  met,  first  or  last,  on  its  own  ground.  The 
time  has  come  to  tell  the  whole  truth  now  — 
that  John  Brown's  whole  Kansas  life  was  the 
result  of  this  self-imposed  mission,  not  the  cause 
of  it.  Let  us  do  this  man  justice;  he  was  not  a 
vindictive  guerrilla,  nor  a  maddened  Indian  ;  nor 
was  he  of  so  shallow  a  nature  that  it  took  the 


224  CONTEMPORARIES 

death  of  a  son  to  convince  him  that  right  was 
right,  and  wrong  was  wrong.  He  had  long  be 
fore  made  up  his  mind  to  sacrifice  every  son  he 
ever  had,  if  necessary,  in  righting  slavery.  If 
it  was  John  Brown  against  the  world,  no  mat 
ter  ;  for,  as  his  friend  Frederick  Douglass  had 
truly  said,  "  In  the  right  one  is  a  majority." 
On  this  conviction,  therefore,  he  deliberately 
determined,  twenty  years  ago  this  summer,  that 
at  some  future  period  he  would  organize  an 
armed  party,  go  into  a  slave  State,  and  liberate 
a  large  number  of  slaves.  Soon  after,  survey 
ing  professionally  in  the  mountains  of  Virginia, 
he  chose  the  very  ground  for  his  purpose.  Vis 
iting  Europe  afterwards,  he  studied  military 
strategy  for  this  purpose,  even  making  designs 
(which  I  have  seen)  for  a  new  style  of  forest 
fortification,  simple  and  ingenious,  to  be  used 
by  parties  of  fugitive  slaves  when  brought  to 
bay.  He  knew  the  ground,  he  knew  his  plans, 
he  knew  himself  ;  but  where  should  he  find  his 
men  ?  He  came  to  the  Adirondacks  to  look  for 
them. 

Ten  years  ago  Gerrit  Smith  gave  to  a  num 
ber  of  colored  men  tracts  of  ground  in  the 
Adirondack  Mountains.  The  emigrants  were 
grossly  defrauded  by  a  cheating  surveyor,  who, 
being  in  advance  of  his  age,  practically  antici 
pated  Judge  Taney's  opinion,  that  black  men 


JOHN    BROWN'S    HOUSEHOLD  225 

have  no  rights  which  white  men  are  bound 
to  respect.  By  his  villainy  the  colony  was 
almost  ruined  in  advance ;  nor  did  it  ever  re 
cover  itself ;  though  some  of  the  best  farms 
which  I  have  seen  in  that  region  are  still  in  the 
hands  of  colored  men.  John  Brown  heard  of 
this ;  he  himself  was  a  surveyor,  and  he  would 
have  gone  to  the  Adirondacks,  or  anywhere  else, 
merely  to  right  this  wrong.  But  he  had  an 
other  object — he  thought  that  among  these 
men  he  should  find  coadjutors  in  his  cherished 
plan.  He  was  not  wholly  wrong,  and  yet  he 
afterwards  learned  something  more.  Such  men 
as  he  needed  are  not  to  be  found  ordinarily  ; 
they  must  be  reared.  John  Brown  did  not 
merely  look  for  men,  therefore ;  he  reared  them 
in  his  sons.  During  long  years  of  waiting  and 
postponement,  he  found  others ;  but  his  sons 
and  their  friends  (the  Thompsons)  formed  the 
nucleus  of  his  force  in  all  his  enterprises.  What 
services  the  women  of  his  family  may  have  ren 
dered  it  is  not  yet  time  to  tell ;  but  it  is  a  sat 
isfaction  to  think  that  he  was  repaid  for  his 
early  friendship  to  these  New  York  colored  men 
by  some  valuable  aid  from  freed  slaves  and  fugi 
tive  slaves  at  Harper's  Ferry  ;  especially  from 
Dangerfield  Newby,  who,  poor  fellow !  had  a 
slave  wife  and  nine  slave  children  to  fight  for, 
all  within  thirty  miles  of  that  town. 


226  CONTEMPORARIES 

To  appreciate  the  character  of  the  family,  it 
is  necessary  to  know  these  things ;  to  under 
stand  that  they  have  all  been  trained  from 
childhood  on  this  one  principle,  and  for  this  one 
special  project ;  taught  to  believe  in  it  as  they 
believed  in  their  God  or  their  father.  It  has 
given  them  a  wider  perspective  than  the  Adi- 
rondacks.  Five  years  before,  when  they  first 
went  to  Kansas,  the  father  and  sons  had  a  plan 
of  going  to  Louisiana,  trying  this  same  project, 
and  then  retreating  into  Texas  with  the  liber 
ated  slaves.  Nurtured  on  it  so  long,  for  years 
sacrificing  to  it  all  the  other  objects  of  life,  the 
thought  of  its  failure  never  crossed  their  min'Js ; 
and  it  is  an  extraordinary  fact  that  when  the 
disastrous  news  first  came  to  North  Elba,  the 
family  utterly  refused  to  believe  it  and  were 
saved  from  suffering  by  that  incredulity  till  the 
arrival  of  the  next  weekly  mail. 

I  had  left  the  world  outside,  to  raise  the 
latch  of  this  humble  door  amid  the  mountains  ; 
and  now  my  pen  falters  on  the  threshold,  as 
my  steps  did  then.  This  house  is  a  home  of 
sacred  sorrow.  How  shall  we  enter  it  ?  Its 
inmates  are  bereft  and  ruined  men  and  women, 
as  the  world  reckons;  what  can  we  say  to 
them  ?  Do  not  shrink ;  you  are  not  near  the 
world ;  you  are  near  John  Brown's  household. 
"  In  the  world  ye  shall  have  tribulation  ;  but 


JOHN    BROWN'S    HOUSEHOLD         227 

be  of  good  cheer  :  they  have  overcome  the 
world." 

It  had  been  my  privilege  to  live  in  the  best 
society  all  my  life  —  namely,  that  of  abolition 
ists  and  fugitive  slaves.  I  had  seen  the  most 
eminent  persons  of  the  age  :  several  men  on 
whose  heads  tens  of  thousands  of  dollars  had 
been  set ;  a  black  woman,  who,  after  escaping 
from  slavery  herself,  had  gone  back  secretly 
eight  times  into  the  jaws  of  death  to  bring  out 
persons  whom  she  had  never  seen  ;  and  a  white 
man,  who,  after  assisting  away  fugitives  by  the 
thousand,  had  twice  been  stripped  of  every  dol 
lar  of  his  property  in  fines,  and,  when  taunted 
by  the  court,  had  mildly  said,  "  Friend,  if  thee 
knows  any  poor  fugitive  in  need  of  a  breakfast, 
send  him  to  Thomas  Garrett's  door."  I  had 
known  these,  and  such  as  these  ;  but  I  had  not 
known  the  Browns.  Nothing  short  of  knowing 
them  can  be  called  a  liberal  education.  Lord 
Byron  could  not  help  clinging  to  Shelley,  be 
cause  he  said  he  was  the  only  person  in  whom 
he  saw  anything  like  disinterested  benevolence. 
He  really  believed  that  Shelley  would  give  his 
life  for  another.  Poor  Byron !  he  might  well 
have  exchanged  his  wealth,  his  peerage,  and  his 
genius  for  a  brief  training  at  North  Elba. 

Let  me  pause  a  moment,  and  enumerate  the 
members  of  the  family.  John  Brown  was  born 


228  CONTEMPORARIES 

in  1800,  and  his  wife  in  1816,  though  both 
might  have  been  supposed  older  than  the  ages 
thus  indicated.  He  has  had  in  all  twenty  chil 
dren  —  seven  being  the  offspring  of  his  first 
wife,  thirteen  of  his  second.  Four  of  each  race 
are  living  —  eight  in  all.  The  elder  division  of 
the  surviving  family  comprises  John  and  Jason, 
both  married,  and  living  in  Ohio ;  Owen,  un 
married,  who  escaped  from  Harper's  Ferry,  and 
Ruth,  the  wife  of  Henry  Thompson,  who  lives 
on  an  adjoining  farm  at  North  Elba,  an  intelli 
gent  and  noble  woman.  The  younger  division 
consists  of  Salmon,  aged  twenty-three,  who  re 
sides  with  his  young  wife  in  his  mother's  house, 
and  three  unmarried  daughters,  Anne  (sixteen), 
Sarah  (thirteen),  and  Ellen  (five).  In  the  same 
house  dwell  also  the  widows  of  the  two  slain 
sons — young  girls,  aged  but  sixteen  and  twenty. 
The  latter  is  the  sister  of  Henry  Thompson, 
and  of  the  two  Thompsons  who  were  killed  at 
Harper's  Ferry ;  they  also  lived  in  the  same 
vicinity,  and  one  of  them  also  has  left  a  widow. 
Thus  complicated  and  intertangled  is  this  gene 
alogy  of  sorrow. 

All  these  young  men  went  deliberately  from 
North  Elba  for  no  other  purpose  than  to  join 
in  this  enterprise.  "  They  could  not,"  they  told 
their  mother  and  their  wives,  "live  for  them 
selves  alone  ; "  and  so  they  went.  One  young 


JOHN    BROWN'S   HOUSEHOLD          229 

wife,  less  submissive  than  the  others,  prevailed 
on  her  husband  to  remain ;  and  this  is  the  only 
reason  why  Salmon  Brown  survives.  Oliver 
Brown,  the  youngest  son,  only  twenty,  wrote 
back  to  his  wife  from  Harper's  Ferry  in  a  sort 
of  premonition  of  what  was  coming,  "  If  I  can 
do  a  single  good  action,  my  life  will  not  have 
been  all  a  failure." 

Having  had  the  honor  of  Captain  Brown's 
acquaintance  for  some  years,  I  was  admitted 
into  the  confidence  of  the  family,  though  I 
could  see  them  observing  me  somewhat  suspi 
ciously  as  I  approached  the  door.  Everything 
that  was  said  of  the  absent  father  and  husband 
bore  testimony  to  the  same  simple,  upright  char 
acter.  Though  they  had  been  much  sepa 
rated  from  him  for  the  last  few  years,  they 
all  felt  it  to  be  a  necessary  absence,  and  had 
not  only  no  complaint  to  make,  but  cordially 
approved  it.  Mrs.  Brown  had  been  always 
the  sharer  of  his  plans.  "  Her  husband  always 
believed,"  she  said,  "  that  he  was  to  be  an  in 
strument  in  the  hands  of  Providence,"  and  she 
believed  it  too.  "  This  plan  had  occupied  his 
thoughts  and  prayers  for  twenty  years. "  "  Many 
a  night  he  had  lain  awake,  and  prayed  concern 
ing  it."  "Even  now,"  she  did  not  doubt,  "he 
felt  satisfied  because  he  thought  it  would  be 
overruled  by  Providence  for  the  best."  "  For 


230  CONTEMPORARIES 

herself,"  she  said,  "  she  had  always  prayed  that 
her  husband  might  be  killed  in  fight  rather  than 
fall  alive  into  the  hands  of  slaveholders  ;  but 
she  could  not  regret  it  now,  in  view  of  the 
noble  words  of  freedom  which  it  had  been  his 
privilege  to  utter."  When,  the  next  day,  on 
the  railway,  I  was  compelled  to  put  into  her 
hands  the  newspaper  containing  the  death 
warrant  of  her  husband,  I  felt  no  fears  of  her 
exposing  herself  to  observation  by  any  undue 
excitement.  She  read  it,  and  then  the  tall, 
strong  woman  bent  her  head  for  a  few  minutes 
on  the  back  of  the  seat  before  us ;  then  she 
raised  it,  and  spoke  calmly  as  before. 

I  thought  that  I  had  learned  the  lesson  once 
for  all  in  Kansas,  which  no  one  ever  learns  from 
books  of  history  alone,  of  the  readiness  with 
which  danger  and  death  fit  into  the  ordinary 
grooves  of  daily  life,  so  that  on  the  day  of  a 
battle,  for  instance,  all  may  go  on  as  usual, 
-breakfast  and  dinner  are  provided,  children 
cared  for,  and  all  external  existence  has  the 
same  smoothness  that  one  observes  at  Niagara, 
just  above  the  American  Fall ;  but  it  impressed 
me  anew  on  visiting  this  household  at  this 
time.  Here  was  a  family  out  of  which  four 
young  men  had  within  a  fortnight  been  killed. 
I  say  nothing  of  a  father  under  sentence  of 
death,  and  a  brother  fleeing  for  his  life,  but 


JOHN   BROWN'S   HOUSEHOLD          231 

only  speak  of  those  killed.  Now  that  word 
"killed"  is  a  word  which  one  hardly  cares  to 
mention  in  a  mourning  household  circle,  even 
under  all  mitigating  circumstances,  when  sad 
unavailing  kisses  and  tender  funeral  rites  have 
softened  the  last  memories  ;  how  much  less  here, 
then,  where  it  suggested  not  merely  wounds 
and  terror,  and  agony,  but  also  coffinless  graves 
in  a  hostile  land,  and  the  last  ignominy  of  the 
dissecting-room. 

Yet  there  was  not  one  of  that  family  who 
could  not  pronounce  that  awful  word  with  per 
fect  quietness  ;  never,  of  course,  lightly,  but 
always  quietly.  For  instance,  as  I  sat  that 
evening,  with  the  women  busily  sewing  around 
me,  preparing  the  mother  for  her  sudden  depar 
ture  with  me  on  the  morrow,  some  daguerreo 
types  were  brought  out  to  show  me  and  some 
one  said,  "  This  is  Oliver,  one  of  those  who  were 
killed  at  Harper's  Ferry."  I  glanced  up  sidelong 
at  the  young,  fair-haired  girl,  who  sat  near  me 
by  the  little  table  —  a  wife  at  fifteen,  a  widow  at 
sixteen ;  and  this  was  her  husband,  and  he  was 
killed.  As  the  words  were  spoken  in  her  hear 
ing,  not  a  muscle  quivered,  and  her  finger  did 
not  tremble  as  she  drew  the  thread.  Her  life 
had  become  too  real  to  leave  room  for  win 
cing  at  mere  words.  She  had  lived  through, 
beyond  the  word,  to  the  sterner  fact,  and  having 


232  CONTEMPORARIES 

confronted  that,  language  was  an  empty  shell. 
To  the  Browns,  killing  means  simply  dying  — 
nothing  more ;  one  gate  into  heaven,  and  that 
one  a  good  deal  frequented  by  their  family  ;  that 
is  all. 

There  was  no  hardness  about  all  this,  no 
mere  stoicism  of  will ;  only  God  had  inured 
them  to  the  realities  of  things.  They  were 
not  supported  by  any  notions  of  worldly  honor 
or  applause,  nor  by  that  chilly  reflection  of  it, 
the  hope  of  future  fame.  In  conversing  with 
the  different  members  of  this  family,  I  cannot 
recall  a  single  instance  of  any  heroics  of  that 
description.  There,  in  that  secluded  home 
among  the  mountains,  what  have  they  to  do 
with  the  world's  opinion,  even  now,  still  less 
next  century  ?  You  remember  Carlyle  and  his 
Frenchman,  to  whom  he  was  endeavoring  to 
expound  the  Scottish  Covenanters.  "These 
poor,  persecuted  people,"  said  Carlyle,  —  "they 
made  their  appeal."  "Yes,"  interrupted  the 
Frenchman,  "they  appealed  to  posterity,  no 
doubt."  "Not  a  bit  of  it,"  quoth  Carlyle, - 
"  they  appealed  to  the  Eternal  God  !  "  So  with 
these  whom  I  visited.  I  was  the  first  person 
who  had  penetrated  their  solitude  from  the 
outer  world  since  the  thunderbolt  had  fallen. 
Do  not  imagine  that  they  asked,  What  is  the 
world  saying  of  us  ?  Will  j  ustice  be  done  to  the 


JOHN   BROWN'S    HOUSEHOLD          233 

memory  of  our  martyrs  ?  Will  men  build  the 
tombs  of  the  prophets  ?  Will  the  great  think 
ers  of  the  age  affirm  that  our  father  "makes 
the  gallows  glorious  like  the  cross  ? "  Not  at 
all ;  they  asked  but  one  question  after  I  had 
told  them  how  little  hope  there  was  of  acquittal 
or  rescue.  "  Does  it  seem  as  if  freedom  were 
to  gain  or  lose  by  this  ?  "  That  was  all.  Their 
mother  spoke  the  spirit  of  them  all  to  me,  next 
day,  when  she  said,  "  I  have  had  thirteen  chil 
dren,  and  only  four  are  left ;  but  if  I  am  to  see 
the  ruin  of  my  house,  I  cannot  but  hope  that 
Providence  may  bring  out  of  it  some  benefit  to 
the  poor  slaves." 

No  ;  this  family  works  for  a  higher  price 
than  fame.  You  know  it  is  said  that  in  all 
Wellington's  dispatches  you  never  meet  with 
the  word  Glory ;  it  is  always  Duty.  In  Napo 
leon's  you  never  meet  with  the  word  Duty ;  it 
is  always  Glory.  The  race  of  John  Brown  is 
of  the  Wellington  type.  Principle  is  the  word 
I  brought  away  with  me  as  most  familiar  in 
their  vocabulary.  That  is  their  standard  of 
classification.  A  man  may  be  brave,  ardent, 
generous  ;  no  matter  —  if  he  is  not  all  this 
from  principle,  it  is  nothing.  The  daughters, 
who  knew  all  the  Harper's  Ferry  men,  had  no 
confidence  in  Cook  because  "  he  was  not  a 
man  of  principle."  They  would  trust  Stevens 


234  CONTEMPORARIES 

round  the  world,  because  "he  was  a  man  of 
principle."  "  He  tries  the  hardest  to  be  good," 
said  Annie  Brown,  in  her  simple  way,  "  of  any 
man  I  ever  saw." 

It  is  pleasant  to  add  that  this  same  brave- 
hearted  girl,  who  had  known  most  of  her  father's 
associates,  recognized  them  all  but  Cook  as  be 
ing  men  of  principle.  "People  are  surprised,'1 
she  said,  "  at  father's  daring  to  invade  Virginia 
with  only  twenty-three  men  ;  but  I  think  if  they 
knew  what  sort  of  men  they  were,  there  would 
be  less  surprise.  I  never  saw  such  men." 

And  it  pleases  me  to  remember  that  since 
this  visit,  on  the  day  of  execution,  while  our 
Worcester  bells  were  tolling  their  melancholy 
refrain,  I  took  from  the  post-office  a  letter  from 
this  same  young  girl,  expressing  pity  and  sorrow 
for  the  recreant  Cook,  and  uttering  the  hope 
that  allowances  might  be  made  for  his  con 
duct,  "though  she  could  not  justify  it."  And 
on  the  same  day  I  read  that  infuriated  letter  of 
Mrs.  Mahala  Doyle  —  a  letter  which  common 
charity  bids  us  suppose  a  forgery,  uttering 
fiendish  revenge  in  regard  to  a  man  against 
whom,  by  her  own  showing,  there  is  not  one 
particle  of  evidence  to  identify  him  with  her 
wrongs.  Nothing  impressed  me  more  in  my 
visit  to  the  Brown  family,  and  in  subsequent 
correspondence  with  them,  than  the  utter  ab- 


JOHN   BROWN'S   HOUSEHOLD          235 

sence  of  the  slightest  vindictive  spirit,  even  in 
words. 

The  children  spoke  of  their  father  as  a  per 
son  of  absolute  rectitude,  thoughtful  kindness, 
unfailing  foresight,  and  inexhaustible  activity. 
On  his  flying  visits  to  the  farm,  every  moment 
was  used ;  he  was  "  up  at  three  A.  M.,  seeing  to 
everything  himself,"  providing  for  everything, 
and  giving  heed  to  the  minutest  points.  It  was 
evident  that  some  of  the  older  ones  had  stood 
a  little  in  awe  of  him  in  their  childish  years. 
"  We  boys  felt  a  little  pleased  sometimes,  after 
all,"  said  the  son,  "  when  father  left  the  farm 
for  a  few  days."  "We  girls  never  did,"  said 
the  married  daughter,  reproachfully,  the  tears 
gushing  to  her  eyes.  "  Well,"  said  the  brother, 
repenting,  "  we  were  always  glad  to  see  the  old 
man  come  back  again ;  for  if  we  did  get  more 
holidays  in  his  absence,  we  always  missed 
him." 

Those  dramatic  points  of  character  in  him, 
which  will  of  course  make  him  the  favorite 
hero  of  all  American  romance  hereafter,  are 
nowhere  appreciated  more  fully  than  in  his 
own  family.  In  the  midst  of  all  their  sorrow, 
their  strong  and  healthy  hearts  could  enjoy 
the  record  of  his  conversations  with  the  Vir 
ginians,  and  applaud  the  keen,  wise,  simple  an 
swers  which  I  read  to  them,  selecting  here  and 


236  CONTEMPORARIES 

there  from  the  ample  file  of  newspapers  I  car 
ried  with  me.  When,  for  instance,  I  read  the 
inquiry,  "  Did  you  go  out  under  the  auspices 
of  the  Emigrant  Aid  Society  ? "  and  the  an 
swer,  "  No,  sir  ;  I  went  out  under  the  auspices  of 
John  Brown,"  three  voices  eagerly  burst  in  with, 
"  That 's  true,"  and  "  That 's  so."  And  when  it 
was  related  that  the  young  Virginia  volunteer 
taxed  him  with  want  of  military  foresight  in 
bringing  so  small  a  party  to  conquer  Virginia, 
and  the  veteran  imperturbably  informed  the 
young  man  that  probably  their  views  on  military 
matters  would  materially  differ,  there  was  a 
general  delighted  chorus  of,  "That  sounds  just 
like  father."  And  his  sublimer  expressions  of 
faith  and  self-devotion  produced  no  excitement 
or  surprise  among  them,  —  since  they  knew  in 
advance  all  which  we  now  know  of  him  —  and 
these  things  only  elicited,  at  times,  a  half-stifled 
sigh  as  they  reflected  that  they  might  never 
hear  that  beloved  voice  again. 

References  to  their  father  were  constant. 
This  book  he  brought  them ;  the  one  sitting- 
room  had  been  plastered  with  the  last  money  he 
sent ;  that  desk,  that  gun,  were  his  ;  this  was  his 
daguerreotype ;  and  at  last  the  rosy  little  Ellen 
brought  me,  with  reverent  hands,  her  prime 
treasure.  It  was  a  morocco  case,  inclosing  a 
small  Bible ;  and  in  the  beginning,  written  in 


JOHN   BROWN'S   HOUSEHOLD          237 

the  plain,  legible  hand  I  knew  so  well,  the  fol 
lowing  inscription,  which  would  alone  (in  its 
touching  simplicity)  have  been  worthy  the 
pilgrimage  to  North  Elba  to  see. 

This  Bible,  presented  to  my  dearly  beloved 
daughter  Ellen  Brown,  is  not  intended  for  com 
mon  use,  but  to  be  carefully  preserved  for  her 
and  by  her,  in  remembrance  of  her  father  (of 
whose  care  and  attentions  she  was  deprived  in 
her  infancy),  he  being  absent  in  the  territory  of 
Kansas  from  the  summer  of  1855. 

May  the  Holy  Spirit  of  God  incline  your 
heart,  in  earliest  childhood,  "to  receive  the  truth 
in  the  love  of  it,"  and  to  form  your  thoughts, 
words,  and  actions  by  its  wise  and  holy  pre 
cepts,  is  my  best  wish  and  most  earnest  prayer 
to  Him  in  whose  care  I  leave  you.  Amen. 
From  your  affectionate  father, 

JOHN  BROWN. 

April  2,  1857. 

This  is  dated  two  years  ago;  but  the  prin 
ciples  which  dictated  it  were  permanent.  Al 
most  on  the  eve  of  his  last  battle,  October  i, 
1859,  he  wrote  home  to  his  daughter  Anne,  in 
a  letter  which  I  saw,  "  Anne,  I  want  you  first  of 
all  to  become  a  sincere,  humble,  and  consistent 
Christian,  and  then  [this  is  characteristic],  to  ac 
quire  good  and  efficient  business  habits.  Save 


238  CONTEMPORARIES 

this  to  remember  your  father  by,  Anne.  God 
Almighty  bless  and  save  you  all.  " 

John  Brown  is  almost  the  only  radical  abo 
litionist  I  have  ever  known  who  was  not  more 
or  less  radical  in  religious  matters  also.  His 
theology  was  Puritan,  like  his  practice  ;  and 
accustomed  as  we  now  are  to  see  Puritan  doc 
trines  and  Puritan  virtues  separately  exhibited, 
it  seems  quite  strange  to  behold  them  com 
bined  in  one  person  again.  He  and  his  wife 
were  regular  communicants  of  the  Presbyterian 
church  ;  but  it  tried  his  soul  to  see  the  juvenile 
clerical  gentlemen  who  came  into  the  pulpits 
up  that  way,  and  dared  to  call  themselves  Pres 
byterians  —  preachers  of  the  gospel  with  all  the 
hard  applications  left  out.  Since  they  had  lived 
in  North  Elba,  his  wife  said,  but  twice  had  the 
slave  been  mentioned  in  the  Sunday  services, 
and  she  had  great  doubts  about  the  propriety 
of  taking  part  in  such  worship  as  that.  But 
when  the  head  of  the  family  made  his  visits 
home  from  Kansas,  he  commonly  held  a  Sunday 
meeting  in  the  little  church,  "under  the  au 
spices  of  John  Brown,"  and  the  Lord  heard  the 
slave  mentioned  pretty  freely  then. 

In  speaking  of  religious  opinions,  Mrs.  Brown 
mentioned  two  preachers  whose  sermons  her 
sons  liked  to  read,  and  "  whose  anti-slavery  prin 
ciples  she  enjoyed,  though  she  could  not  agree 


JOHN   BROWN'S   HOUSEHOLD          239 

with  all  their  doctrines."  She  seemed  to  regard 
their  positions  as  essentially  the  same.  I  need 
not  say  who  the  two  are  —  the  thunders  of 
Brooklyn  and  of  Boston  acquire  much  the  same 
sound  as  they  roll  up  among  the  echoes  of  the 
Adirondacks. 

In  respect  to  politics,  Mrs.  Brown  told  me 
that  her  husband  had  taken  little  interest  in 
them  since  the  election  of  Jackson,  because  he 
thought  that  politics  merely  followed  the  con 
dition  of  public  sentiment  on  the  slavery  ques 
tion,  and  that  this  public  sentiment  was  mainly 
created  by  actual  collisions  between  slavery  and 
freedom.  Such,  at  least,  was  the  view  which  I 
was  led  to  attribute  to  him,  by  combining  this 
fact  which  she  mentioned  with  my  own  personal 
knowledge  of  his  opinions.  He  had  an  almost 
exaggerated  aversion  to  words  and  speeches, 
and  a  profound  conviction  of  the  importance 
of  bringing  all  questions  to  a  direct  issue,  and 
subjecting  every  theory  to  the  test  of  practical 
application. 

I  did  not,  of  course,  insult  Mrs.  Brown  by  any 
reference  to  that  most  shallow  charge  of  insan 
ity  against  her  husband,  which  some  even  of  his 
friends  have,  with  what  seems  most  cruel  kind 
ness,  encouraged,  —  thereby  doing  their  best  to 
degrade  one  of  the  age's  prime  heroes  into  a 
mere  monomaniac,  —  but  it  may  be  well  to  re- 


240  CONTEMPORARIES 

cord  that  she  spoke  of  it  with  surprise,  and  said 
that  if  her  husband  were  insane,  he  had  been 
consistent  in  his  insanity  from  the  first  moment 
she  knew  him. 

Now  that  all  is  over,  and  we  appear  to  have 
decided,  for  the  present,  not  to  employ  any  car 
nal  weapons,  such  as  steel  or  iron,  for  the  res 
cue  of  John  Brown,  but  only  to  use  the  safer 
metals  of  gold  and  silver  for  the  aid  of  his  fam 
ily,  it  may  be  natural  for  those  who  read  this 
narrative  to  ask,  What  is  the  pecuniary  con 
dition  of  this  household  ?  It  is  hard  to  answer, 
because  the  whole  standard  is  different,  as  to 
such  matters,  in  North  Elba  and  in  Massachu 
setts.  The  ordinary  condition  of  the  Brown 
family  may  be  stated  as  follows  :  They  own  the 
farm,  such  as  it  is,  without  incumbrance,  except 
so  far  as  unfelled  forest  constitutes  one.  They 
have  ordinarily  enough  to  eat  of  what  the  farm 
yields,  namely,  bread  and  potatoes,  pork  and 
mutton  —  not  any  great  abundance  of  these, 
but  ordinarily  enough.  They  have  ordinarily 
enough  to  wear,  at  least  of  woolen  clothing, 
spun  by  themselves.  And  they  have  absolutely 
no  money.  When  I  say  this  I  do  not  merely 
mean  that  they  have  no  superfluous  cash  to  go 
shopping  with,  but  I  mean  almost  literally  that 
they  have  none.  For  nearly  a  whole  winter, 
Mrs.  Brown  said,  they  had  no  money  with 


JOHN   BROWN'S   HOUSEHOLD          241 

which  to  pay  postage,  except  a  tiny  treasury 
which  the  younger  girls  had  earned  for  that  ex 
press  object,  during  the  previous  summer,  by 
picking  berries  for  a  neighbor  three  miles  off. 

The  reason  of  these  privations  simply  was, 
that  it  cost  money  to  live  in  Kansas  in  "ad 
herence  to  the  cause  of  freedom "  (see  the 
tombstone  inscription  again),  but  not  so  much 
to  live  at  North  Elba;  and  therefore  the  wo 
men  must  stint  themselves  that  the  men  might 
continue  their  Kansas  work.  When  the  father 
came  upon  his  visits  he  never  came  empty- 
handed,  but  brought  a  little  money,  some  plain 
household  stores,  flour,  sugar,  rice,  salt  fish  ;  tea 
and  coffee  they  do  not  use.  But  what  their 
standard  of  expense  is  may  be  seen  from  the 
fact  that  Mrs.  Brown  seemed  to  speak  as  if 
her  youngest  widowed  daughter  were  not  totally 
and  absolutely  destitute,  because  her  husband 
had  left  a  property  of  five  sheep,  which  would 
belong  to  her.  These  sheep,  I  found  on  in 
quiry,  were  worth,  at  that  place  and  season,  two 
dollars  apiece :  a  child  of  sixteen,  left  a  widow 
in  the  world,  with  an  estate  amounting  to  ten 
dollars  !  The  immediate  financial  anxieties  of 
Mrs.  Brown  herself  seemed  chiefly  to  relate  to 
a  certain  formidable  tax  bill,  due  at  New  Year's 
time  ;  if  they  could  only  weather  that,  all  was 
clear  for  the  immediate  future.  How  much  was 


242  CONTEMPORARIES 

it,  I  asked,  rather  surprised  that  that  wild  coun 
try  should  produce  a  high  rate  of  taxation.  It 
was  from  eight  to  ten  dollars,  she  gravely  said ; 
and  she  had  put  by  ten  dollars  for  the  purpose, 
but  had  had  occasion  to  lend  most  of  it  to  a 
poor  black  woman,  with  no  great  hope  of  re 
payment.  And  one  of  the  first  things  done  by 
her  husband,  on  recovering  his  money  in  Vir 
ginia,  was  to  send  her,  through  me,  fifteen  dol 
lars,  to  make  sure  of  that  tax  bill. 

I  see,  on  looking  back,  how  bare  and  inex 
pressive  this  hasty  narrative  is ;  but  I  could  not 
bear  to  suffer  such  a  privilege  as  this  visit  to 
pass  away  unrecorded.  I  spent  but  one  night 
at  the  house,  and  drove  away  with  Mrs.  Brown, 
in  the  early  frosty  morning,  from  that  breezy 
mountain  home,  which  her  husband  loved  (as 
one  of  them  told  me)  "because  he  seemed 
to  think  there  was  something  romantic  in  that 
kind  of  scenery."  There  was,  indeed,  always 
a  sort  of  thrill  in  John  Brown's  voice  when  he 
spoke  of  mountains.  I  never  shall  forget  the 
quiet  way  in  which  he  once  told  me  that  "  God 
had  established  the  Alleghany  Mountains  from 
the  foundation  of  the  world  that  they  might  one 
day  be  a  refuge  for  fugitive  slaves."  I  did  not 
then  know  that  his  own  home  was  among  the 
Adirondacks. 

Just   before   we   went,   I  remember,   I   said 


JOHN    BROWN'S   HOUSEHOLD          243 

something  or  other  to  Salmon  Brown  about 
the  sacrifices  of  their  family ;  and  he  looked  up 
in  a  quiet,  manly  way,  which  I  shall  never  for 
get,  and  said  briefly,  "  I  sometimes  think  that 
is  what  we  came  into  the  world  for  —  to  make 
sacrifices."  And  I  know  that  the  murmuring 
echo  of  those  words  went  with  me  all  that  day, 
as  we  came  down  from  the  mountains,  and  out 
through  the  iron  gorge ;  and  it  seemed  to  me 
that  any  one  must  be  very  unworthy  the  so 
ciety  I  had  been  permitted  to  enter  who  did  not 
come  forth  from  it  a  wiser  and  a  better  man. 


WILLIAM  LLOYD  GARRISON 

WILLIAM  LLOYD  GARRISON  was  born  at  New- 
buryport,  Mass.,  December  10,  1805,  and  died 
in  New  York  City,  May  24,  1879.  There 
passed  away  in  him  the  living  centre  of  a  re 
markable  group  of  men  and  women  who  have 
had  no  equals  among  us,  in  certain  moral  at 
tributes,  since  the  Revolutionary  period  and 
perhaps  not  then.  The  Earl  of  Carlisle  said  of 
them  that  they  were  "  fighting  a  battle  without 
parallel  in  the  history  of  ancient  or  modern  her 
oism  ; "  and,  without  assuming  to  indorse  this 
strong  statement  we  may  yet  claim  that  there 
was  some  foundation  for  it.  When  we  consider 
the  single  fact  that  the  "  Garrison  mob  "  was 
composed,  by  the  current  assertion  of  leading 
journals,  of  "gentlemen  of  property  and  stand 
ing,"  and  that  the  then  mayor  of  the  city,  wish 
ing  to  protect  the  victim,  found  it  necessary  to 
direct  that  the  modest  sign  of  the  Ladies'  Anti- 
Slavery  Society  should  be  torn  down  and  given 
to  this  mob  for  destruction,  we  can  form  some 
distinct  impression  of  the  opposition  through 
which  the  early  abolitionists  had  to  fight  their 


WILLIAM   LLOYD   GARRISON  245 

way.  Their  period  was  a  time  when  truth  was 
called  treason,  and  when  a  man  who  spoke  it 
might  be  dragged  through  the  streets  with  a 
rope  round  his  body.  We  must  remember  that 
men  thus  decorated  do  not  always  find  it  easy 
to  be  tolerant  or  to  exhibit  their  gentlest  side 
in  return.  The  so-called  persecution  of  reform 
ers  is  often  a  thing  too  trivial  to  be  worth  talk 
ing  about,  at  least  in  English-speaking  countries. 
Indeed,  it  is  usually  of  that  slight  texture  in 
these  days,  but  in  the  early  anti-slavery  period 
it  had  something  of  the  heroic  quality. 

A  few  years  later,  when  the  abolitionists  had 
won  the  right  to  have  meetings  of  their  own, 
there  could  not  be  a  moment's  doubt,  for  any 
observer,  as  to  the  real  centre  of  the  gathering. 
In  first  looking  in  upon  any  old-time  conven 
tion,  any  observing  eye  would  promptly  have 
selected  Garrison  as  the  leading  figure  on  the 
platform.  His  firm  and  well-built  person,  his 
sonorous  voice,  and  the  grave  and  iron  strength 
of  his  face  would  have  at  once  indicated  this.  I 
never  saw  a  countenance  that  could  be  com 
pared  to  it  in  respect  to  moral  strength  and 
force  ;  he  seemed  the  visible  embodiment  of 
something  deeper  and  more  controlling  than 
mere  intellect.  His  utterance  was  like  his  face, 
—  grave,  powerful,  with  little  variety  or  play ; 
he  had  none  of  that  rhetorical  relief  in  which 


246  CONTEMPORARIES 

Phillips  was  so  affluent ;  he  was  usually  monot 
onous,  sometimes  fatiguing,  but  always  con 
trolling.  His  reason  marched  like  an  army 
without  banners ;  his  invective  was  scathing, 
but  as  it  was  almost  always  mainly  scriptural, 
it  did  not  carry  an  impression  of  personal  an 
ger,  but  simply  seemed  like  a  newly  discovered 
chapter  of  Ezekiel.  He  constantly  reiterated 
and  intrenched  his  argument  with  ample  details, 
and  had  a  journalist's  love  for  newspaper  cut 
tings,  which  he  inflicted  without  stint  upon  his 
audience,  bearing  down  all  reluctance  with  his 
commanding  tones.  For  one,  I  cannot  honestly 
say  that  I  ever  positively  enjoyed  one  of  his 
speeches,  or  that  I  ever  failed  to  listen  with  a 
sense  of  deference  and  of  moral  leadership. 

At  some  future  period  the  historian  of  the 
anti-slavery  movement  may  decide  on  the  fit 
award  of  credit  due  to  each  of  the  various  in 
fluences  that  brought  about  the  abolition  of 
slavery.  The  Garrisonian  or  Disunion  Aboli 
tionists  represented  the  narrowest  of  the  streams 
which  made  up  the  mighty  river,  but  they  un 
doubtedly  represented  the  loftiest  height  and 
the  greatest  head  of  water.  The  Garrisonians 
were  generally  non-resistants,  but  those  who  be 
lieved  in  the  physical  rescue  of  fugitive  slaves 
were  nevertheless  their  pupils.  The  Garrisoni 
ans  eschewed  voting,  yet  many  who  voted  drew 


WILLIAM   LLOYD   GARRISON  247 

strength  from  them.  The  Garrisonians  took 
little  part  in  raising  troops  for  war,  but  the  tra 
dition  of  their  influence  did  much  to  impel  the 
army.  The  only  great  emotion  in  which  they 
took  no  share  was  the  instinct  of  national  devo 
tion  to  the  Union ;  that  sentiment  had  grown 
stronger  in  spite  of  them,  and  was  largely  due 
to  Webster,  who  had,  meanwhile,  been  led  by 
it  to  make  sacrifices  which  they  had  justly  con 
demned.  The  forces  at  work  during  that  great 
period  of  our  nation's  life  were  too  complex  to 
be  held  in  any  single  hand,  but  it  was  to  Gar 
rison  more  than  to  any  other  man,  that  the  great 
ultimate  result  was  remotely  due.  Every  other 
participant  seemed  to  reflect,  more  or  less,  the 
current  of  popular  progress  around  him  ;  Gar 
rison  alone  seemed  an  original  and  creative 
force.  On  this  point  the  verdict  of  posterity 
will  hardly  appeal  from  the  modest  self -judg 
ment  of  Abraham  Lincoln  when  he  said :  "  I 
have  been  only  an  instrument.  The  logic  and 
moral  power  of  Garrison  and  the  anti-slavery 
people  of  the  country  and  the  army  have  done 
all."  l 

It  now  seems,  in  looking  back,  as  if  the  anti- 
slavery  movement  would  have  been  a  compara- 

1  See  "  Lincoln's  Conversation  with  Ex-Governor  Chamber 
lain  of  South  Carolina,"  in  New  York  Tribune,  November 
4,  1883. 


248  CONTEMPORARIES 

tively  easy  thing  had  the  party  which  assailed 
slavery  been  united,  and  yet  this  is  a  drawback 
which  it  shared  apparently  with  every  great  re 
form  that  was  ever  attempted.  There  raged 
within  the  anti-slavery  ranks  themselves  a  hos 
tility,  whose  causes  now  seem  very  insufficient, 
but  which  vastly  embarrassed  the  whole  enter 
prise.  The  quarrel  between  "  Old  Organiza 
tion  "  and  "  New  Organization  "  certainly  em 
bittered  for  a  time  the  lives  of  all  concerned  in 
it.  Beginning  partly  in  a  generous  protest  by 
Garrison  and  others  against  the  exclusion  of 
women  from  a  World's  Anti-Slavery  Conven 
tion,  but  partly  also  in  his  views  on  the  Sabbath 
question  and  upon  other  side  issues,  it  ended  in 
the  creation  of  two  rival  camps,  with  almost 
all  the  anti-slavery  clergy  and  the  voting  abo 
litionists  on  one  side,  while  Garrison  and  his 
Spartan  band  held  the  other.  Some  blame,  as 
I  always  thought,  was  to  be  attached  to  both 
sides,  and  the  over-vehemence  of  the  contest 
may  be  judged  from  the  fact  that  a  leading 
"  Garrisonian  "  once  went  so  far  as  to  insinuate 
a  doubt  whether  the  stainless  Whittier  —  who 
was  then  counted  in  the  other  ranks  —  was 
"more  knave  or  fool." 

It  is  a  very  frequent  experience  of  great  re 
formers  that  they  part  company  by  degrees 
with  some  of  the  ablest  and  most  devoted  of 


WILLIAM    LLOYD   GARRISON  249 

their  early  adherents  ;  but  perhaps  no  man  ever 
had  so  large  an  accumulation  of  this  painful 
experience  as  had  the  recognized  leader  of  the 
anti- slavery  movement.  The  list  of  severed 
friendships  included  Benjamin  Lundy,  whom 
Garrison  properly  called  "the  pioneer"  among 
abolitionists ;  and  William  Goodell,  whom  Gar 
rison  described  as  "  a  much  older  and  a  better 
soldier"  than  himself.  It  included  Arthur  Tap- 
pan,  who  had  paid  Garrison's  fine  when  impris 
oned  at  Baltimore  ;  Lewis  Tappan,  whose  house 
in  New  York  had  been  sacked  by  a  pro-slavery 
mob ;  James  G.  Birney,  who  had  emancipated 
his  own  slaves ;  and  Amos  A.  Phelps,  who  had 
defended  Garrison  against  that  Clerical  Appeal 
which  made  so  great  a  noise  in  its  day.  All 
these  men  were  led  by  degrees  into  antagonism 
to  their  great  leader ;  it  was  a  permanent  divi 
sion  and  influenced  the  whole  anti-slavery  move 
ment.  For  this  alienation  on  their  part  that 
leader  had  no  mercy ;  it  was  always  attributed 
by  him  simply  to  "a  mighty  sectarian  conspir 
acy"  or  a  "  jealous  and  envious  spirit."  Pos 
terity,  less  easily  satisfied,  quite  disposed  to 
honor  the  great  anti-slavery  warrior,  but  by  no 
means  inclined  to  give  him  exclusive  laurels, 
will  perhaps  not  wholly  indorse  this  conclusion. 
I  am  ready  to  testify  that,  at  the  later  period 
of  the  contest,  and  when  his  personal  position 


250  CONTEMPORARIES 

was  thoroughly  established,  he  seemed  wholly 
patient  and  considerate  with  younger  recruits. 
He  never  demanded  that  they  should  see  eye 
to  eye  with  him,  but  only  that  they  should  have 
what  abolitionists  called  "the  root  of  the  mat 
ter"  in  them.  But  I  fear  that  the  weight  of 
testimony  goes  to  show  that  he  had  not  always 
been  equally  moderate  in  his  demands. 

The  charge  most  commonly  made  against 
him  by  these  early  associates  was  that  of  mani 
festing  a  quality  which  the  pioneer  Benjamin 
Lundy  called  "  arrogance,"  and  the  other  pio 
neer,  William  Goodell,  depicted  in  his  article, 
"How  to  make  a  Pope."  "You  exalt  your 
self  too  much,"  wrote  the  plain-spoken  Elizur 
Wright.  "  I  pray  to  God  that  you  may  be 
brought  to  repent  of  it."  Lewis  Tappan  at 
about  the  same  time  wrote,  — "  You  speak 
of  '  sedition  '  and  '  chastising  '  Messrs.  Fitch, 
Towne,  and  Woodbury  :  I  do  not  like  such 
language."  The  most  fearless  and  formidable 
of  all  these  indictments,  because  the  gentlest 
and  most  unwilling,  was  that  of  Sarah  Grimke. 
Speaking  of  the  course  pursued  by  Garrison 
and  his  immediate  circle  toward  her  and  her 
sister,  she  says :  "  They  wanted  us  to  live  out 
William  Lloyd  Garrison,  not  the  convictions  of 
our  own  souls  ;  entirely  unaware  that  they  were 
exhibiting,  in  the  high  places  of  moral  reform,1 


WILLIAM   LLOYD   GARRISON  251 

the  genuine  spirit  of  slaveholding,  by  wishing 
to  curtail  the  sacred  privilege  of  conscience.1 

This  was  the  main  complaint  made  against 
him  from  the  inside,  while  the  criticism  from 
the  outside  was,  and  still  is,  that  of  excessive 
harshness  of  language.  Here  again  it  is  to  be 
observed  that  the  charge  does  not  rest  on  the 
testimony  of  enemies,  but  of  friends.  We  find 
Harriet  Martineau  herself  saying :  "  I  do  not 
pretend  to  like  or  to  approve  the  tone  of  Garri 
son's  pointed  censures.  I  could  not  use  such 
language  myself  toward  any  class  of  offenders, 
nor  can  I  sympathize  in  its  use  by  others." 
This  was  not  said  in  her  first  book  on  America, 
but  in  her  second  more  deliberate  one  ;  and 
when  we  consider  the  kind  of  language  that 
Miss  Martineau  found  herself  able  to  use,  this 
disclaimer  becomes  very  forcible.  What  such 
critics  overlooked  and  still  overlook,  is  that  the 
whole  vocabulary  of  Garrison  was  the  logical 
result  of  that  stern  school  of  old-fashioned  Cal 
vinism  in  which  he  had  been  trained.  "The 
least  of  sins  is  infinite,"  says  the  Roman  Cath 
olic  poet,  Faber.  This  was  the  logical  attitude 
of  Calvinism,  and  apparently  of  the  youthful 
reformer's  mind.  At  twenty-three  he  wrote  : 
"  It  is  impossible  to  estimate  the  depravity  and 
wickedness  of  those  who,  at  the  present  day, 

1  The  Sisters  Grimke,  p.  220. 


252  CONTEMPORARIES 

reject  the  gospel  of  Jesus  Christ."  When  a 
young  man  begins  with  such  vehemence  of  epi 
thet,  in  matters  of  abstract  belief,  is  it  to  be 
supposed  that  when  he  is  called  upon  to  cope 
with  an  institution  which  even  the  milder  Wes 
ley  called  "The  sum  of  all  villanies,"  he  will 
suddenly  develop  the  habit  of  scrupulous  mod 
eration  ?  "  I  will  be  harsh  as  truth,"  he  said. 
The  only  question  is,  Was  he  never  any  harsher  ? 
That  there  was  such  a  thing  possible  as  un 
due  harshness  in  speaking  of  individual  slave 
holders  the  abolitionists  themselves  were  com 
pelled  sometimes  to  admit.  When  Charles 
Remond,  the  eloquent  colored  orator,  called 
George  Washington  a  villain,  Wendell  Phillips 
replied,  "  Charles,  the  epithet  is  infelicitous." 
Yet  if,  as  was  constantly  assumed  by  Garrison, 
the  whole  moral  sin  of  slaveholding  rested  on 
the  head  of  each  individual  participant,  it  is 
difficult  to  see  why  the  epithet  was  not  admira 
bly  appropriate.  The  point  of  doubt  is  whether 
it  did  so  rest,  —  but  if  it  did,  Remond  was 
right.  Such  extreme  statements  were  not  al 
ways  thus  rebuked.  When  a  slaveholder  was 
once  speaking  in  an  anti-slavery  convention, 
he  was  flatly  contradicted  by  Stephen  Foster, 
who  was,  perhaps,  next  to  Garrison,  the  hardest 
hitter  among  the  abolitionists.  "  Do  you  think 
I  would  lie  ? "  retorted  the  slaveholder.  "  Why 


WILLIAM   LLOYD   GARRISON  253 

not  ?  "  said  Foster.  "  I  know  you  steal."  This 
Draconian  inflexibility,  rinding  the  least  of  sins 
worthy  of  death,  and  having  no  higher  penalty 
for  the  greatest,  was  a  very  common  code  upon 
the  anti-slavery  platform.  It  was  a  part  of  its 
power,  but  it  brought  also  a  certain  weakness, 
as  being  really  based  upon  an  untruth. 

Consider  this  matter  for  a  moment.  Men  are 
not  merely  sometimes,  but  very  often,  better 
than  the  laws  under  which  they  live.  Garrison 
wrote  in  one  case  :  — 

"  For  myself,  I  hold  no  fellowship  with  slave 
owners.  I  will  not  make  a  truce  with  them 
even  for  a  single  hour.  I  blush  for  them  as 
countrymen.  I  know  that  they  are  not  Chris 
tians  ;  and  the  higher  they  raise  their  pro 
fessions  of  patriotism  or  piety,  the  stronger  is 
my  detestation  of  their  hypocrisy.  They  are 
dishonest  and  cruel,  — and  God  and  the  angels 
and  devils  and  the  universe  know  that  they  are 
without  excuse"  l 

"  Without  excuse  !  "  Set  aside  all  the  facts 
of  ignorance,  of  heredity,  of  environment,  of 
all  that  makes  excuse  in  charitable  minds  when 
judging  sin,  and  look  at  this  one  point  only,  — 
the  tremendous  practical  difficulties  studiously 
accumulated  by  skillful  lawgivers  in  the  way  of 
sundering  the  relation  between  master  and  the 

1   William  Lloyd  Garrison  :   The  Story  of  his  Life,  i.  208. 


254  CONTEMPORARIES 

slave.  In  all  the  great  States  of  South  Caro 
lina,  Georgia,  Alabama,  and  Mississippi,  a  man 
becoming  heir  to  human  property  was  abso 
lutely  prohibited  from  emancipating  it  except 
by  a  special  authority  of  the  legislature,  a  per 
mission  usually  impossible  to  get.  In  one  of 
these  States,  Mississippi,  it  was  also  required 
that  the  legislature  itself  could  grant  freedom 
only  for  some  special  act  of  public  or  private 
service  on  the  part  of  the  individual  slave,  and 
the  same  restriction  was  made  in  North  Caro 
lina,  with  the  substitution  of  the  county  court 
for  the  legislature  as  authority.  In  every  one  of 
these  States  the  slave-owner,  had  he  been  Gar 
rison  himself,  was  as  powerless  to  free  his  slaves 
without  the  formal  consent  of  the  state  authori 
ties  as  he  would  have  been  to  swim  the  Atlan 
tic  with  those  slaves  on  his  back ;  and  yet  these 
men  were  said  to  be  "  without  excuse."  Even 
in  Virginia  the  converted  slaveholder  was  met 
with  the  legal  requirement  that  the  freed  slaves 
must  be  removed  from  the  State  within  a  cer 
tain  time,  in  default  of  which  they  would  be 
sold  at  auction  to  the  highest  bidder.  Slavery 
itself  had  often  impoverished  the  owner,  so  that 
he  could  not  personally  remove  the  slaves,  and 
the  auction-block  was  to  all  these  poor  people 
the  last  of  all  tragedies.  Even  Birney,  it  will 
be  remembered,  freed  his  slaves  in  Kentucky, 


WILLIAM   LLOYD    GARRISON  255 

while  Palfrey  freed  his  in  Louisiana,  the  laws 
of  both  these  States  being  exceptionally  mild. 
The  more  we  dwell  on  this  complicated  situa 
tion,  the  more  impressed  we  become  with  the 
vast  wrong  of  the  institution  and  of  its  avowed 
propagandists  ;  but  the  more  charitable  we  be 
come  towards  those  exceptional  slaveholders 
who  had  begun  to  open  their  eyes  to  its  evils, 
yet  found  themselves  bound  hand  and  foot  by 
its  laws.  In  view  of  this  class  of  facts,  such 
general  arraignments  as  that  above  cited  from 
Garrison  appear  to  me  to  have  been  too  severe.1 
The  hostility  of  Garrison  to  the  voting  Abo 
litionists  did  not  merely  take  the  form  of  disap 
proval  and  distrust  as  being  organized  by  men 
who  had  revolted  from  his  immediate  leader 
ship,  but  he  convinced  himself  that  their  politi 
cal  action  was  contemptible  and  even  ludi 
crous.  When  an  anti-slavery  candidate  was 
first  nominated  for  the  presidency,  he  called  it 
"folly,  presumption,  almost  unequaled  infatua 
tion,"  and  if  he  varied  from  this  attitude  of 
contempt  it  was  to  "denounce  it,"  in  his  own 
words,  "as  the  worst  form  of  pro -slavery." 
But  when  the  Liberty  party  had  expanded  into 
the  Free-Soil  party,  and  that  again  into  the 
Republican  party,  much  of  the  old  bitterness 
waned,  and  some  of  the  political  anti- slavery 

1  Stroud's  Slave  Laws,  pp.  146-51. 


256  CONTEMPORARIES 

leaders,  especially  Sumner  and  Wilson,  were  in 
constant  and  hearty  intercourse  with  the  Garri- 
sonian  apostles.  At  this  later  period,  at  least, 
as  I  have  already  said,  there  was  visible  none  of 
that  exacting  or  domineering  spirit  which  had 
been  earlier  attributed  to  him. 

Every  candid  estimate  of  Garrison's  career 
must  always  end,  it  would  seem,  at  substan 
tially  the  same  point.  While  not  faultless,  he 
kept  far  higher  laws  than  he  broke.  He  did  the 
work  of  a  man  of  iron  in  an  iron  age,  so  that 
even  those  who  recognized  his  faults  might  well 
join,  as  they  did,  in  the  chorus  of  affectionate 
congratulations  that  marked  his  closing  days. 
His  fame  is  secure,  and  all  the  securer  because 
time  has  enabled  us  to  recognize,  more  clearly 
than  at  first,  precisely  what  he  did,  and  just 
what  were  the  limitations  of  his  temperament. 
It  is  a  striking  fact  that  in  the  Valhalla  of  con 
temporary  statues  in  his  own  city,  only  two, 
those  of  Webster  and  Everett,  commemorate 
those  who  stood  for  the  party  of  conservatism 
in  the  great  anti-slavery  conflict ;  while  all  the 
rest,  Lincoln,  Quincy,  Sumner,  Andrew,  Mann, 
Garrison,  and  Shaw  represent  the  party  of 
attack.  It  is  the  verdict  of  time,  confirming 
in  bronze  and  marble  the  great  words  of  Em 
erson,  "What  forests  of  laurel  we  bring,  and 
the  tears  of  mankind,  to  those  who  stood  firm 
against  the  opinion  of  their  contemporaries  !  " 


(v. 


PHILLIPS 

WENDELL  PHILLIPS,  son  of  John  and  Sarah 
(Walley)  Phillips,  was  born  in  Boston  Novem 
ber  29,  1811,  and  died  in  that  city  February  2, 
1884.  Like  many  eminent  men  in  New  Eng 
land,  he  traced  his  line  of  descent  to  a  Puritan 
clergyman ;  in  this  case,  to  the  Rev.  George 
Phillips,  the  first  minister  of  Watertown,  Mass. 
From  that  ancestor  was  descended,  in  the  fifth 
generation,  John  Phillips,  first  mayor  of  Boston, 
elected  in  1822  as  a  sort  of  compromise  can 
didate  between  Harrison  Gray  Otis  and  Josiah 
Quincy,  who  equally  divided  public  favor.  John 
Phillips  is  credited  by  tradition  with  "  a  pliable 
disposition,"  which  he  clearly  did  not  transmit 
to  his  son.  The  mayor  was  a  graduate  of  Har 
vard  College  in  1788,  held  various  public  offices, 
and  was  for  many  years  "  Town  Advocate  and 
Public  Prosecutor/'  a  function  which  certainly 
became,  in  a  less  official  sense,  hereditary  in  the 
family.  He  was  a  man  of  wealth  and  reputa 
tion,  and  he  built  for  himself  a  large  mansion, 
which  is  conspicuous  in  the  early  engravings  of 
Boston,  and  is  still  standing  at  the  lower  corner 


258  CONTEMPORARIES 

of  Beacon  and  Walnut  streets.  There  Wendell 
Phillips  was  born.  He  was  placed  by  birth  in 
the  most  favored  worldly  position,  the  whole 
Phillips  family  being  rich  and  influential  at  a 
time  when  social  demarcations  were  more  dis 
tinct  than  now.  He  was,  however,  brought  up 
wisely,  since  John  Phillips  made  this  rule  for 
his  children  :  "  Ask  no  man  to  do  for  you  any 
thing  that  you  are  not  able  and  willing  to  do 
for  yourself."  Accordingly  his  son  claimed,  in 
later  life,  that  there  was  hardly  any  kind  of  ordi 
nary  trade  or  manual  labor  practiced  in  New 
England  at  which  he  had  not  done  many  a  day's 
work.  He  attended  the  Boston  Latin  School, 
entered  Harvard  College  before  he  was  sixteen, 
and  was  graduated  (in  1831)  before  he  was 
twenty,  in  the  same  class  with  Motley  the  his 
torian.  My  elder  brother,  who  was  two  years 
later  in  college,  used  to  say  that  Wendell  Phil 
lips  was  the  only  student  of  that  period,  for 
whom  the  family  carriage  was  habitually  sent 
out  to  Cambridge  on  Saturday  morning  to  bring 
him  into  Boston  for  Sunday. 

It  is  rare  for  any  striking  career  to  have  a 
dramatic  beginning  ;  but  it  may  be  truly  said  of 
Wendell  Phillips  that  his  first  recorded  speech 
established  his  reputation  as  an  orator,  and  de 
termined  the  whole  course  of  his  life.  Grad 
uating  at  the  Harvard  Law  School  in  1834,  he 


PHILLIPS  259 

was  admitted  to  the  bar  in  the  same  year.  In 
1835  ne  witnessed  the  mobbing  of  Garrison; 
in  1836  joined  the  American  Anti-slavery  So 
ciety.  In  1837  occurred  the  great  excitement 
which  raged  in  Congress  around  John  Quincy 
Adams  when  he  stood  for  the  right  of  petition ; 
and  in  November  of  that  year  Elijah  P.  Love- 
joy  was  murdered  at  Alton,  111.,  while  defend 
ing  his  press  from  a  pro-slavery  mob.  The 
Rev.  Dr.  Channing  and  others  asked  the  use  of 
Faneuil  Hall  for  a  meeting  to  express  their  in 
dignation,  the  city  authorities  refused  it ;  Dr. 
Channing  then  wrote  an  appeal  to  the  citizens 
of  Boston,  and  the  authorities  yielded  to  the 
demand.  At  the  Faneuil  Hall  meeting  Jona 
than  Phillips,  a  wealthy  citizen  and  a  second 
cousin  of  Wendell  Phillips,  presided ;  Dr.  Chan 
ning  spoke,  and  then  two  young  lawyers,  Hal- 
lett  and  Hillard.  James  Trecothick  Austin, 
Attorney-General  of  the  State,  then  addressed 
the  audience  from  the  gallery ;  and  his  speech 
soon  proved  the  meeting  to  be  divided  on  the 
main  question,  with  a  bias  toward  the  wrong 
side.  He  said  that  Lovejoy  died  as  the  fool 
dieth,  and  compared  his  murderers  to  the  men 
who  threw  the  tea  into  Boston  Harbor.  The 
audience  broke  into  applause,  and  seemed  ready 
to  go  with  Austin  ;  when  Wendell  Phillips  came 
on  the  platform,  amid  opposition  that  scarcely 


260  CONTEMPORARIES 

allowed  him  to  be  heard.  Almost  at  his  first 
words,  he  took  the  meeting  in  his  hands,  and 
brought  it  back  to  its  real  object.  "When  I 
heard,"  he  said,  "  the  gentleman  lay  down  prin 
ciples  which  placed  the  murderers  of  Alton  side 
by  side  with  Otis  and  Hancock,  with  Quincy 
and  Adams,  I  thought  these  pictured  lips  [point 
ing  to  their  portraits]  would  have  broken  into 
voice  to  rebuke  the  recreant  American,  the  slan 
derer  of  the  dead."  From  that  moment  the 
tide  was  turned,  the  audience  carried,  the  ora 
torical  fame  of  Wendell  Phillips  secured,  and 
his  future  career  determined.  From  this  time 
forward,  and  while  slavery  remained,  he  was  first 
and  chiefly  an  abolitionist ;  all  other  reforms 
were  subordinate  to  this,  and  this  was  his  life. 
To  this  he  sacrificed  his  social  position,  his  early 
friendships,  his  professional  career.  Possess 
ing  a  sufficient  independent  income,  he  did  not 
incur  the  added  discomfort  of  poverty;  but, 
being  rich,  he  made  himself,  as  it  were,  poor 
through  life,  reduced  his  personal  wants  to  the 
lowest  terms,  earned  all  the  money  he  could  by 
lecturing  and  gave  away  all  that  he  could  spare. 
He  was  fortunate  in  wedding  a  wife  in  perfect 
sympathy  with  him,  —  Miss  Ann  T.  Greene,  - 
and,  indeed,  he  always  said  that  her  influence 
first  made  him  an  abolitionist.  A  life  -  long 
invalid,  rarely  leaving  her  room,  she  had  yet 


PHILLIPS  261 

such  indomitable  courage,  such  keenness  of 
wit,  such  insight  into  character,  that  she  really 
divided  with  him  the  labors  of  his  career.  It 
is  impossible  for  those  who  knew  them  both  to 
think  of  him  without  her.  They  lived  on  Essex 
Street,  in  a  region  already  almost  deserted  by 
residences  and  given  over  to  shops ;  the  house 
was  plain  and  bare  without  and  within ;  they 
had  no  children ;  and,  except  during  the  brief 
period  when  their  adopted  daughter  was  with 
them,  the  home  seemed  almost  homeless  out 
side  of  the  walls  of  Mrs.  Phillips's  apartment. 
There  indeed  —  for  her  husband  and  her  few 
intimates  —  peace  and  courage  ruled,  with  joy 
and  hilarity  not  seldom  added.  During  many 
years,  however,  Mr.  Phillips  was  absent  a  great 
deal  from  Boston,  on  his  lecture  tours,  though 
these  rarely  extended  far  westward,  or  over  very 
long  routes.  Both  he  and  his  wife  regarded 
these  lectures  as  an  important  mission ;  for 
even  if  he  only  spoke  on  "The  Lost  Arts"  or 
"Street  Life  in  Europe,"  it  gave  him  a  per 
sonal  hold  upon  each  community  he  visited,  and 
the  next  time,  perhaps,  an  anti-slavery  lecture 
would  be  demanded,  or  one  on  temperance  or 
woman's  rights.  He  always  claimed  this  sort 
of  preliminary  influence,  in  particular,  for  his 
lecture  on  Daniel  O'Connell,  which  secured  for 
him  a  great  following  among  our  Irish  fellow 


262  CONTEMPORARIES 

citizens   at   a   time   when   they  were   bitterly 
arrayed  against  the  anti-slavery  movement. 

Unlike  his  coadjutor,  Edmund  Quincy,  Wen 
dell  Phillips  disavowed  being  a  non-resistant. 
That  scruple,  as  well  as  the  alleged  pro-slavery 
character  of  the  Constitution,  precluded  most 
of  the  Garrisonian  abolitionists  from  voting  or 
holding  office ;  but  Phillips  was  checked  by  his 
anti-slavery  convictions  alone.  This  fact  made 
him,  like  Theodore  Parker,  a  connecting  link 
between  the  non-resistants  and  the  younger 
school  of  abolitionists  who  believed  in  physical 
opposition  to  the  local  encroachments,  at  least, 
of  the  slave  power.  They  formed  various 
loosely  knit  associations  for  this  purpose,  of 
which  he  was  not  a  member ;  but  he  was  ready 
with  sympathy  and  money.  In  one  of  their 
efforts,  the  Burns  rescue,  he  always  regretted 
the  mishap,  which,  for  want  of  due  explana 
tion  threw  him  on  the  side  of  caution,  where 
he  did  not  belong.  At  the  Faneuil-Hall  meet 
ing  which  it  was  proposed  to  transfer  bodily  to 
Court  Square,  Theodore  Parker  was  notified  of 
the  project,  but  misunderstood  the  signal ;  Wen 
dell  Phillips  was  not  notified,  for  want  of  time, 
and  was  very  unjustly  blamed  afterwards.  It 
is  doubtful  whether  he  was,  in  his  very  fibre,  a 
man  of  action  ;  but  he  never  discouraged  those 
who  were  such,  nor  had  he  the  slightest  objec- 


PHILLIPS  263 

tion  to  violating  law  where  human  freedom 
was  at  stake.  A  man  of  personal  courage  he 
eminently  was.  In  the  intense  and  temporary 
revival  of  mob  feeling  in  Boston,  in  the  autumn 
and  winter  of  1860,  when  a  John  Brown  meet 
ing  was  broken  up  by  the  same  class  who  had 
mobbed  Garrison,  Wendell  Phillips  was  the 
object  of  special  hostility.  He  was  then  speak 
ing  every  Sunday  at  the  Music  Hall,  to  Theo 
dore  Parker's  congregation,  and  was  each  Sun 
day  followed  home  by  a  mob,  while  personally 
defended  by  a  self-appointed  body  guard.  On 
one  occasion  the  demonstrations  were  so  threat 
ening  that  he  was  with  difficulty  persuaded  to 
leave  the  hall  by  a  side  entrance,  and  was  driven 
to  his  home,  with  a  fast  horse,  by  the  same  Dr. 
David  Thayer  who  watched  his  dying  bed.  For 
several  nights  his  house  was  guarded  by  a  small 
number  of  friends  within,  and  by  the  police 
without.  During  all  this  time,  there  was  some 
thing  peculiarly  striking  and  characteristic  in 
his  demeanor.  There  was  absolutely  nothing  of 
bull-dog  combajiveness,  but  a  careless,  buoyant, 
almost  patrician  air,  as  if  nothing  in  the  way  of 
mob  violence  were  worth  considering,  and  all 
threats  of  opponents  were  simply  beneath  con 
tempt.  He  seemed  like  some  English  Jacobite 
nobleman  on  the  scaffold,  carelessly  taking 
snuff,  and  kissing  his  hand  to  the  crowd,  before 
laying  his  head  upon  the  block. 


264  CONTEMPORARIES 

No  other  person  than  Garrison  could  be  said 
to  do  much  in  the  way  of  guiding  the  "  Gar- 
risonian  "  anti-slavery  movement ;  and  Wendell 
Phillips  was  thoroughly  and  absolutely  loyal  to 
his  great  chief  while  slavery  existed.  In  the 
details  of  the  agitation,  perhaps  the  leading 
organizers  were  two  remarkable  women,  Maria 
Weston  Chapman  and  Abby  Kelley  Foster. 
The  function  of  Wendell  Phillips  was  to  supply 
the  eloquence,  but  he  was  not  wanting  either  in 
grasp  of  principles  or  interest  in  details.  He 
thoroughly  accepted  the  non-voting  theory,  and 
was  ready,  not  only  to  speak  at  any  time,  but 
to  write  —  which  he  found  far  harder  —  in  op 
position  to  those  abolitionists,  like  Lysander 
Spooner,  who  were  always  trying  to  prove  the 
United  States  Constitution  an  anti-slavery  in 
strument.  Mr.  Phillips's  "  The  Constitution  a 
Pro-slavery  Compact"  (1844),  although  almost 
wholly  a  compilation  from  the  Madison  papers, 
was  for  many  years  a  storehouse  of  argument 
for  the  disunionists;  and  it  went  through  a 
series  of  editions. 

In  later  life  he  often  wrote  letters  to  the  news 
papers,  in  which  he  did  not  always  appear  to 
advantage.  But  he  did  very  little  writing,  on 
the  whole :  it  always  came  hard  to  him,  and  he 
had,  indeed,  a  theory  that  the  same  person  could 
never  succeed  both  in  speaking  and  writing, 


PHILLIPS  265 

because  they  required  such  different  habits  of 
mind.  Even  as  to  reports  of  what  he  had  said, 
he  was  quite  indifferent ;  and  it  was  rather  hard 
to  persuade  him  to  interest  himself  in  the  vol 
ume  of  his  "  Speeches,  Lectures,  and  Essays," 
which  was  prepared  by  James  Redpath  in 
1863.  That  editor  was  a  good  deal  censured 
at  the  time  for  retaining  in  these  speeches  the 
expressions  of  applause  or  disapprobation  which 
had  appeared  in  the  original  newspaper  reports, 
and  which  the  orator  had  erased.  It  is,  how 
ever,  fortunate  that  Mr.  Redpath  did  this :  it 
not  only  increases  their  value  as  memorials  of 
the  time,  but  it  brings  out  that  close  contact 
and  intercommunion  with  his  audience  which 
formed  an  inseparable  part  of  the  oratory  of 
Wendell  Phillips.  The  latter  also  published 
"  The  Constitution  a  Pro  -  slavery  Compact " 
(1844),  "  Can  Abolitionists  vote  or  take  Office  ?  " 
(1845),  "Review  of  Spooner's  Constitutionality 
of  Slavery"  (1847),  and  other  similar  pamphlets. 
He  moreover  showed  real  literary  power  and  an 
exquisite  felicity  in  the  delineation  of  character, 
through  his  memorial  tributes  to  some  of  his 
friends  ;  as,  for  instance,  the  philanthropist  Mrs. 
Eliza  Garnaut  of  Boston,  whose  only  daughter 
he  afterward  adopted. 

The    keynote    to    the    oratory  of  Wendell 
Phillips  lay  in  this  :  that  it  was  essentially  con- 


266  CONTEMPORARIES 

versational,  —  the  conversational  raised  to  its 
highest  power.  Perhaps  no  orator  ever  spoke 
with  so  little  apparent  effort,  or  began  so  entirely 
on  the  plane  of  his  average  hearers.  It  was 
as  if  he  simply  repeated,  in  a  little  louder  tone, 
what  he  had  just  been  saying  to  some  familiar 
friend  at  his  elbow.  The  effect  was  absolutely 
disarming.  Those  accustomed  to  spread-eagle 
eloquence  felt  perhaps  a  slight  sense  of  disap 
pointment.  Could  this  quiet,  easy,  effortless 
man  be  Wendell  Phillips  ?  But  he  held  them 
by  his  very  quietness :  it  did  not  seem  to  have 
occurred  to  him  to  doubt  his  power  to  hold 
them.  The  poise  of  his  manly  figure,  the  easy 
grace  of  his  attitude,  the  thrilling  modulation 
of  his  perfectly  trained  voice,  the  dignity  of 
his  gesture,  the  keen  penetration  of  his  eye, 
all  aided  to  keep  his  hearers  in  hand.  The 
colloquialism  was  never  relaxed,  but  it  was 
familiarity  without  loss  of  keeping.  When  he 
said  "  is  n't  "  and  "  was  n't,"  -  —  or  even  like  an 
Englishman  dropped  his  £-'s,  and  said  "  bein'  " 
and  "  doin',"  —  it  did  not  seem  inelegant ;  he 
might  almost  have  been  ungrammatical,  and  it 
would  not  have  impaired  the  fine  air  of  the  man. 
Then,  as  the  argument  went  on,  the  voice  grew 
deeper,  the  action  more  animated,  and  the 
sentences  would  come  in  a  long,  sonorous  swell, 
still  easy  and  graceful,  but  powerful  as  the  soft 


PHILLIPS  267 

stretching  of  a  tiger's  paw.  He  could  be  terse 
as  Carlyle,  or  his  periods  could  be  as  prolonged 
and  cumulative  as  those  of  Rufus  Choate  or 
Evarts  :  no  matter  ;  they  carried,  in  either  case, 
an  equal  charm.  He  was  surpassed  by  Garri 
son  in  grave  moral  logic ;  by  Parker,  in  the 
grasp  of  facts  and  in  merciless  sarcasm  ;  by 
Sumner,  in  copiousness  of  illustration  ;  by  Doug 
lass,  in  humor  and  in  pathos,  —  but,  after  all, 
in  the  perfect  moulding  of  the  orator,  he  sur 
passed  not  merely  each  of  these,  but  all  of  them 
combined.  What  the  Revolutionary  orators 
would  now  seem  to  us,  we  cannot  tell ;  but  it  is 
pretty  certain  that  of  all  our  post-Revolutionary 
speakers,  save  Webster  only,  Wendell  Phillips 
stood  at  the  head,  while  he  and  Webster  repre 
sented  types  of  oratory  so  essentially  different 
that  any  comparison  between  them  is  like  trying 
to  compare  an  oak-tree  and  a  pine. 

He  was  not  moody  or  variable,  or  did  not 
seem  so ;  yet  he  always  approached  the  hour  of 
speaking  with  a  certain  reluctance,  and  never 
could  quite  sympathize  with  the  desire  to  listen 
either  to  him  or  to  any  one  else.  As  he  walked 
toward  the  lecture-room  he  would  say  to  a  friend, 
"  Why  do  people  go  to  lectures  ?  There  is  a 
respectable  man  and  woman  ;  they  must  have 
a  good  home ;  why  do  they  leave  it  for  the  sake 
of  hearing  somebody  talk  ? "  This  was  not 


268  CONTEMPORARIES 

affectation,  but  the  fatigue  of  playing  too  long 
on  one  string.  Just  before  coming  on  the  plat 
form  at  a  convention,  he  would  remark  with  ab 
solute  sincerity,  "  I  have  absolutely  nothing  to 
say  ;  "  and  then  would  go  on  to  make,  especially 
if  hissed  or  interrupted,  one  of  his  very  best 
speeches.  Nothing  spurred  him  like  opposi 
tion  ;  and  it  was  not  an  unknown  thing  for  some 
of  his  young  admirers  to  take  a  back  seat  in  the 
hall,  in  order  to  stimulate  him  by  a  counterfeited 
hiss  if  the  meeting  seemed  tame.  Then  the 
unsuspecting  orator  would  rouse  himself  like 
a  lion.  When  this  opposition  came  not  from 
friends  but  foes,  it  was  peculiarly  beneficial ;  and 
perhaps  the  greatest  oratorical  triumph  he  ever 
accomplished  was  on  that  occasion  in  Faneuil 
Hall  (January  30,  1852)  when  it  was  re-opened  to 
the  abolitionists  after  the  capture  of  the  slave 
Thomas  Sims.  Mr.  Webster's  friends  were 
there  in  force,  and  drowned  Mr.  Phillips's  voice 
by  repeated  cheers  for  their  favorite,  when  Mr. 
Phillips  so  turned  the  laugh  against  them  each 
time,  in  the  intervals  when  they  paused  for 
breath,  that  their  cheers  grew  fainter  and  fainter, 
and  he  had  at  last  mobbed  the  mob. 

He  used  to  deny  having  trained  himself  for  a 
public  speaker  ;  drew  habitually  from  but  few 
books, — Tocqueville's  "  Democracy  in  Amer 
ica  "  being  among  the  chief  of  these,  —  but  read 


PHILLIPS  269 

newspapers  enormously,  and  magazines  a  good 
deal,  while  he  had  the  memory  of  an  orator  or 
a  literary  man,  never  letting  pass  an  effective 
anecdote  or  a  telling  fact.  These  he  turned  to 
infinite  account,  never  sparing  ammunition,  and 
never  fearing  to  repeat  himself.  He  used  to 
say  that  he  knew  but  one  thing  thoroughly,  — 
the  history  of  the  English  Revolution,  —  and 
from  this  he  obtained  morals  whenever  he 
wanted  them,  and  in  fact  used  them  in  almost 
any  direction.  He  knew  the  history  of  the 
American  Revolution  also,  Sam  Adams  being 
his  favorite  hero.  He  was  a  thorough  Bos- 
tonian,  too,  and  his  anti  -  slavery  enthusiasm 
never  rose  quite  so  high  as  when  blended  with 
local  patriotism.  No  one  who  heard  it  can  ever 
forget  the  thrilling  modulation  of  his  voice 
when  he  said,  at  some  special  crisis  of  the  anti- 
slavery  agitation,  "  I  love  inexpressibly  these 
streets  of  Boston,  over  whose  pavements  my 
mother  held  up  tenderly  my  baby  feet ;  and  if 
God  grants  me  time  enough,  I  will  make  them 
too  pure  to  bear  the  footsteps  of  a  slave."  At 
the  very  outset  he  doubtless  sometimes  pre 
pared  his  speeches  with  care ;  but  his  first 
great  success  was  won  off-hand  ;  and  afterward, 
during  that  period  of  incessant  practice,  which 
Emerson  makes  the  secret  of  his  power,  he  re 
lied  generally  upon  his  vast  accumulated  store 


270  CONTEMPORARIES 

of  facts  and  illustrations,  and  his  tried  habit  of 
thinking  on  his  legs.  On  special  occasions  he 
would  still  make  preparation,  and  sometimes, 
though  rarely,  wrote  out  his  speeches  before 
hand.  No  one  could  possibly  recognize  this, 
however.  He  had  never  seemed  more  at  his 
ease,  more  colloquial,  more  thoroughly  extem 
poraneous,  than  in  his  address  in  later  life  be 
fore  the  Phi  Beta  Kappa  Society  at  Cambridge ; 
yet  it  had  all  been  sent  to  the  Boston  daily 
papers  in  advance,  and  appeared  with  scarcely 
a  word's  variation,  except  where  he  had  been 
compelled  to  omit  some  passages  for  want  of 
time.  That  was,  in  some  respects,  the  most 
remarkable  effort  of  his  life  ;  it  was  a  tardy 
recognition  of  him  by  his  own  college  and  his 
own  literary  society  ;  and  he  held  an  unwilling 
audience  spellbound,  while  bating  absolutely 
nothing  of  his  radicalism.  Many  a  respectable 
lawyer  or  divine  felt  his  blood  run  cold,  the 
next  day,  when  he  found  that  the  fascinating 
orator  whom  he  had  applauded  to  the  echo  had 
really  made  the  assassination  of  an  emperor 
seem  as  trivial  as  the  doom  of  a  mosquito. 

He  occupied  during  most  of  his  life  the  will 
ing  position  of  a  tribune  of  the  people ;  nor  was 
there  any  social  class  with  which  he  was  unwill 
ing  to  be,  logically  and  politically  at  least,  iden 
tified.  Emerson,  while  thoroughly  true  to  the 


PHILLIPS  271 

anti- slavery  movement,  always  confessed  to 
feeling  a  slight  instinctive  aversion  to  negroes ; 
Theodore  Parker  uttered  frankly  his  dislike  of 
the  Irish.  Yet  neither  of  these  had  distinctly 
aristocratic  impulses,  while  Phillips  had.  His 
conscience  set  them  aside  so  imperatively  that 
he  himself  hardly  knew  that  they  were  there. 
He  was  always  ready  to  be  identified  with  the 
colored  people,  always  ready  to  give  his  oft-re 
peated  lecture  on  O'Connell  to  the  fellow  coun 
trymen  of  that  hero ;  but  in  these  and  all  cases 
his  democratic  habit  had  the  good-natured  air  of 
some  kindly  young  prince  ;  he  never  was  quite 
the  equal  associate  that  he  seemed.  The  want 
of  it  was  never  felt  by  his  associates  ;  it  was  in 
his  dealing  with  antagonists  that  the  real  atti 
tude  came  out.  When  he  once  spoke  contemp 
tuously  of  those  who  dined  with  a  certain  Bos 
ton  club  which  had  censured  him,  as  "men  of 
no  family,"  the  real  mental  habit  appeared. 
And  in  his  external  aspect  and  bearing  the  pa 
trician  air  never  quite  left  him,  —  the  air  that 
he  had  in  college  days,  or  in  that  period  when, 
as  Edmund  Quincy  delighted  to  tell,  an  Eng 
lish  visitor  pointed  out  to  George  Ticknor  two 
men  walking  down  Park  Street,  and  added  the 
cheerful  remark,  "  They  are  the  only  men  I 
have  seen  in  your  country  who  look  like  gen 
tlemen."  The  two  men  were  the  abolitionists 


272  CONTEMPORARIES 

Quincy  and  Phillips,  in  whose  personal  aspect 
the  conservative  Ticknor  could  see  little  to 
commend. 

There  is  no  fame  so  intoxicating  or  so  tran 
sient  as  that  of  mere  oratory.  Some  of  the 
most  accomplished  public  speakers  whom  Amer 
ica  has  produced  have  died  in  mid-career,  and 
left  scarcely  a  ripple  on  the  surface.  It  was  not 
chance  that  gave  a  longer  lease  of  fame  to 
Wendell  Phillips;  a  great  many  elements  of 
genius,  studies,  social  prestige,  and  moral  self- 
sacrifice  had  to  be  combined  to  produce  it.  It 
never  turned  his  head  ;  his  aims  were  too  high 
for  that,  and  he  was  aided  by  the  happy  law 
of  compensation,  which  is  apt  to  make  men 
indifferent  to  easily  won  laurels.  There  is  no 
doubt  that,  in  the  height  of  his  fame  as  a  lec 
turer  or  platform  speaker,  he  often  chafed  under 
the  routine  and  the  fatigue,  and  felt  that,  had 
not  fate  or  Providence  betrayed  him,  his  career 
would  have  been  very  different.  He  knew 
that,  coming  forward  into  life  with  his  powers, 
and  at  the  time  he  did,  he  might  probably 
have  won  the  positions  which  went  easily  to 
men  far  less  richly  endowed,  —  as  Abbott  Law 
rence  and  Robert  Charles  Winthrop,  —  and 
that,  had  he  been  once  within  the  magic  cir 
cle  of  public  office,  he  could  have  used  it  for 
noble  ends,  like  his  favorite,  Sir  Samuel  Romilly. 


PHILLIPS  273 

"  What  I  should  have  liked,"  he  said  once  to 
me,  "would  have  been  the  post  of  United 
States  Senator  for  Massachusetts ;  "  and  though 
he  never  even  dreamed  of  this  as  possible  for 
himself,  he  saw  his  friend  Sumner  achieve  a 
position  which  he,  could  he  once  have  accepted 
its  limitations,  might  equally  have  adorned. 

It  is  impossible  to  say  how  public  office  might 
have  affected  him  ;  whether  it  would  have  given 
him  just  that  added  amount  of  reasonableness 
and  good  judgment  which  in  later  years  seemed 
occasionally  wanting,  or  whether  it  would  have 
only  betrayed  him  to  new  dangers.  He  never 
had  it,  and  the  perilous  lifelong  habits  of  the 
platform  told  upon  him.  The  platform  speaker 
has  his  especial  dangers,  as  conspicuously  as  the 
lawyer  or  the  clergyman  ;  he  acquires  insensibly 
the  mood  of  a  gladiator,  and,  the  better  his  fen 
cing,  the  more  he  becomes  the  slave  of  his  own 
talent.  Les  hommes  exercds  a  Vescrime  ont 
beau  vouloir  manager  leur  adversaire,  r habi 
tude  est  plus  fort,  Us  ripostent  malgre* eux.  As 
under  this  law  the  Vicomte  de  Camors  se 
duced,  almost  against  his  will,  the  wife  of  the 
comrade  to  whom  he  had  pledged  his  life,  so 
Wendell  Phillips,  once  with  rapier  in  hand,  in 
sensibly  fought  to  win,  as  well  as  for  the  glory 
of  God.  The  position  once  taken  must  be 
maintained ;  the  opponent  must  be  overwhelmed 


274  CONTEMPORARIES 

by  almost  any  means.  No  advocate  in  any 
court  was  quicker  than  he  to  shift  his  ground, 
to  introduce  a  new  shade  of  meaning,  to  aban 
don  an  obvious  interpretation,  and  insist  on  a 
more  subtle  one.  Every  man  makes  mistakes  ; 
but  you  might  almost  count  upon  your  ten  fin 
gers  the  number  of  times  that  Wendell  Phil 
lips,  during  his  whole  lifetime,  owned  himself 
to  have  been  in  the  wrong,  or  made  a  conces 
sion  to  an  adversary.  In  criticising  his  career 
in  this  respect,  we  may  almost  reverse  the  cele 
brated  censure  passed  on  the  charge  of  the  Six 
Hundred,  and  may  say  that  it  was  not  heroic, 
but  it  was  war. 

If  this  was  the  case  during  the  great  contest 
with  slavery,  the  evil  was  more  serious  after 
slavery  fell.  The  civil  war  gave  to  Phillips,  as 
it  gave  to  many  men,  an  opportunity ;  but  it 
was  not,  in  his  case,  a  complete  opportunity. 
At  first  he  was  disposed  to  welcome  secession, 
as  fulfilling  the  wishes  of  years;  "to  build," 
as  he  said,  "  a  bridge  of  gold  for  the  Southern 
States  to  walk  over  in  leaving  the  Union."  This 
mood  passed ;  and  he  accepted  the  situation, 
aiding  the  departing  regiments  with  voice  and 
purse.  Yet  it  was  long  before  the  war  took 
a  genuinely  anti-slavery  character,  and  younger 
men  than  he  were  holding  aloof  from  it  for  that 
reason.  He  distrusted  Lincoln  for  his  deliber- 


PHILLIPS  275 

ation,  and  believed  in  Fremont ;  in  short,  for  a 
variety  of  reasons  took  no  clear  and  unmistak 
able  attitude.  After  the  war  had  overthrown 
slavery,  the  case  was  even  worse.  It  was  a  study 
of  character  to  note  the  differing  demeanors  of 
the  great  abolitionist  leaders  after  that  event. 
Edmund  Quincy  found  himself  wholly  out  of 
harness,  ctisceuvrt ' ;  there  was  no  other  battle 
worth  fighting.  He  simply  reverted,  for  the 
rest  of  his  life,  to  that  career  of  cultivated  lei 
sure  from  which  the  anti-slavery  movement  had 
wrenched  him  for  forty  years  ;  he  was  a  critic 
of  music,  a  frequenter  of  the  theatres.  Garri 
son,  on  the  other  hand,  with  his  usual  serene 
and  unabated  vigor,  went  on  contending  for  the 
rights  of  the  freedmen  and  of  women,  as  earlier 
for  those  of  the  slaves.  Unlike  either  of  these, 
Wendell  Phillips  manifested  for  the  remainder 
of  his  career  a  certain  restlessness  —  always 
seemed  to  be  crying,  like  Shakspeare's  Hotspur, 
"  Fye  upon  this  idle  life !  "  and  to  be  always 
seeking  for  some  new  tournament. 

This  would  not  perhaps  have  been  an  evil, 
had  he  not  carried  with  him  into  each  new  en 
terprise  the  habits  of  the  platform,  and  of  the 
anti-slavery  platform  in  particular.  There  never 
was  a  great  moral  movement  so  logically  simple 
as  the  anti-slavery  reform  :  once  grant  that  man 
could  not  rightfully  hold  property  in  man,  and  the 


276  CONTEMPORARIES 

intellectual  part  of  the  debate  was  settled  ;  only 
the  moral  appeal  remained,  and  there  Phillips 
was  master,  and  could  speak  as  one  having 
authority.  Slavery  gone,  the  temperance  and 
woman  suffrage  agitations  remained  for  him  as 
before.  But  he  also  found  himself  thrown,  by 
his  own  lifelong  habit,  into  a  series  of  new  re 
forms,  where  the  questions  involved  were  wholly 
different  from  those  of  the  anti-slavery  move 
ment,  and  were  indeed  at  a  different  stage  of 
development.  You  could  not  settle  the  rela 
tions  of  capital  and  labor  off-hand,  by  saying, 
as  in  the  case  of  slavery,  "  Let  my  people  go  ;  " 
the  matter  was  far  more  complex.  It  was  like 
trying  to  adjust  a  chronometer  with  no  other 
knowledge  than  that  won  by  observing  a  sun 
dial.  In  dealing  with  questions  of  currency  it 
was  still  worse.  And  yet  Wendell  Phillips 
went  on,  for  the  remainder  of  his  life,  preach 
ing  crusades  on  these  difficult  problems,  which 
he  gave  no  sign  of  ever  having  profoundly  stud 
ied,  and  appealing  to  sympathy  and  passion  as 
ardently  as  if  he  still  had  three  million  slaves 
for  whom  to  plead. 

It  was  worse  still,  when,  with  the  natural 
habit  of  a  reformer,  he  found  himself  readily 
accepting  the  companionship  into  which  these 
new  causes  brought  him.  The  tone  of  the  anti- 
slavery  apostles  was  exceedingly  high,  but  there 


PHILLIPS  277 

were  exceptions  even  there.  "  He  is  a  great 
scoundrel,"  said  Theodore  Parker  of  a  certain 
blatant  orator  in  Boston,  "  but  he  loves  liberty." 
It  was  true,  and  was  fairly  to  be  taken  into  ac 
count.  You  do  not  demand  a  Sunday  school 
certificate  from  the  man  who  is  rescuing  your 
child  from  a  burning  house.  But  it  is  to  be 
said,  beyond  this,  that,  though  the  demagogue 
and  the  true  reformer  are  at  opposite  extremes, 
they  have  certain  points  in  common.  Society 
is  apt  to  make  them  both  for  a  time  outcasts, 
and  outcasts  fraternize.  They  alike  distrust  the 
staid  and  conventional  class,  and  they  are  dis 
trusted  by  it.  When  a  man  once  falls  into  the 
habit  of  measuring  merit  by  martyrdoms,  he 
discriminates  less  closely  than  before,  and  the 
best  abused  man,  whatever  the  ground  of  abuse, 
seems  nearest  to  sainthood.  Phillips,  at  his 
best,  had  not  always  shown  keen  discrimination 
as  a  judge  of  character ;  and  the  fact  that  the 
Boston  newspapers  thought  ill  of  General  But 
ler,  for  instance,  was  to  him  a  strong  point  in 
that  gentleman's  favor.  In  this  he  showed  him 
self  less  able  to  discriminate  than  his  old  asso 
ciate,  Stephen  Foster,  one  of  the  most  heroic 
and  frequently  mobbed  figures  in  anti-slavery 
history  :  for  Stephen  Foster  sat  with  reluctance 
to  see  Caleb  Gushing  rudely  silenced  in  Fan- 
euil  Hall  by  his  own  soldiers,  after  the  Mexi- 


278  CONTEMPORARIES 

can  war ;  and  lamented  that  so  good  a  mob, 
which  might  have  helped  the  triumph  of  some 
great  cause,  should  be  wasted  on  one  whom  he 
thought  so  poor  a  creature.  Fortunate  it  would 
have  been  for  Wendell  Phillips  if  he  had  gone 
no  farther  than  this ;  but  he  insisted  on  argu 
ing  from  the  mob  to  the  man,  forgetting  that 
people  may  be  censured  as  well  for  their  sins 
as  for  their  virtues.  The  last  years  of  his  life 
thus  placed  him  in  close  cooperation  with  one 
whose  real  motives  and  methods  were  totally 
unlike  his  own,  —  indeed,  the  most  unscrupu 
lous  soldier  of  fortune  who  ever  posed  as  a 
Friend  of  the  People  on  this  side  the  Atlantic. 
But  all  these  last  days,  and  the  increasing 
irritability  with  which  he  impulsively  took  up 
questions  to  which  he  could  contribute  little 
beyond  courage  and  vehemence,  will  be  at  least 
temporarily  forgotten  now  that  he  is  gone. 
They  will  disappear  from  memory,  like  the 
selfishness  of  Hancock,  or  the  vanity  of  John 
Adams,  in  the  light  of  a  devoted,  generous,  and 
courageous  career.  With  all  his  faults,  his  in 
consistencies,  his  impetuous  words,  and  his  un 
reasoning  prejudices,  Wendell  Phillips  belonged 
to  the  heroic  type.  Whether  we  regard  him 
mainly  as  an  orator,  or  as  a  participant  in  im 
portant  events,  it  is  certain  that  no  history  of 
the  United  States  will  ever  be  likely  to  omit 


PHILLIPS  279 

him.  It  is  rarely  that  any  great  moral  agitation 
bequeaths  to  posterity  more  than  two  or  three 
names ;  the  English  slave-trade  abolition  has 
left  only  Clarkson  and  Wilberforce  in  memory ; 
the  great  Corn  Law  contest,  only  Cobden  and 
Bright.  The  American  anti-slavery  movement 
will  probably  embalm  the  names  of  Garrison, 
Phillips,  and  John  Brown.  This  is  for  the  fu 
ture  to  decide.  Meanwhile,  it  is  certain  that 
Wendell  Phillips  had,  during  life,  that  quality 
which  Emerson  thought  the  highest  of  all  quali 
ties,  —  of  being  "  something  that  cannot  be 
skipped  or  undermined."  From  the  moment  of 
his  death,  even  those  who  had  most  criticised 
him  instinctively  felt  that  one  great  chapter  of 
American  history  was  closed. 


SUMNER 

CHARLES  SUMNER  was  born  at  Boston,  Mass., 
January  6,  1811,  and  died  at  Washington,  D.  C., 
March  u,  1874. 

The  most  poetic  delineator  of  the  life  of 
ancient  Greece,  —  Landor,  —  describes  Demos 
thenes  as  boasting  that  there  were  days  when 
Athens  had  but  one  voice  within  her  walls,  and 
the  stranger,  entering  the  gates  and  startled  by 
the  silence,  was  told  that  Demosthenes  was 
speaking  in  the  assembly  of  the  people.  On 
the  day  before  Charles  Sumner's  funeral  it 
seemed  that  Boston,  too,  had  but  one  voice 
within  her  walls,  and  that  it  came  from  the 
mute  form  reposing  in  the  Doric  Hall  of  the 
State  House.  Emerson  has  said 

"  The  silent  organ  loudest  chants 
Its  master's  requiem," 

and  never  was  there  an  appeal  more  potent 
than  came  that  day  from  the  very  speechless- 
ness  of  that  noble  organ,  the  voice  of  Charles 
Sumner. 

Standing  amid  that  crowd  at  the  State 
House,  it  was  impossible  not  to  ask  one's  self  : 


SUMNER  281 

"  Can  this  be  Boston  ?  The  city  whose  bells 
toll  for  Sumner  —  is  it  the  same  city  that  fired 
one  hundred  guns  for  the  passage  of  the  Fugi 
tive  Slave  Law  ?  The  King's  Chapel,  which  is 
to  hold  his  funeral  rites  —  can  it  be  the  same 
King's  Chapel  which  furnished  from  among  its 
worshipers  the  only  Massachusetts  represen 
tative  who  voted  for  that  law?  These  black 
soldiers  who  guard  the  coffin  of  their  great 
friend  —  are  they  of  the  same  race  with  those 
unarmed  black  men  who  were  marched  down 
yonder  street  surrounded  by  the  bayonets  of 
Boston  militiamen  ? "  It  is  said  that  when 
Sumner  made  his  first  conspicuous  appearance 
as  an  orator  in  Boston,  and  delivered  his  address 
on  "  The  True  Grandeur  of  Nations,"  a  promi 
nent  merchant  said  indignantly,  as  he  went  out 
of  the  building :  "  Well,  if  that  young  man  is 
going  to  talk  in  that  way,  he  cannot  expect 
Boston  to  hold  him  up."  Boston  did  not  hold 
him  up ;  but  Massachusetts  so  sustained  him 
that  he  held  up  Boston,  until  it  had  learned  to 
sustain  him  in  return. 

In  reviewing  the  life  of  any  great  public  man, 
we  must  consider  two  things  —  the  scene  and 
the  actor.  When  Sumner  was  elected  to  the 
United  States  Senate,  in  1851,  the  whole  situ 
ation  was  one  which  now  seems  as  remote  as 
if  centuries  had  passed  since  then.  The  nation 


282  CONTEMPORARIES 

was  apparently  entering  on  a  death  struggle. 
The  North  was  divided.  Families  were  divided. 
All  the  safeguards  in  which  the  men  of  the 
Revolution  had  trusted  were  being  swept  away, 
and  an  institution  which  the  men  of  the  Re 
volution  had  scarcely  feared  was  now  proving 
more  powerful  than  all  the  rest.  Old  John 
Adams,  in  1786,  had  a  conversation  with  a 
certain  Major  Langbourne,  from  Virginia,  who 
was  lamenting  the  difference  of  character  be 
tween  that  commonwealth  and  New  England. 
Mr.  Adams  gave  him  "  a  receipt  for  making  a 
New  England  in  Virginia,"  and  he  named  four 
ingredients,  —  "  town  meetings,  training  days, 
town  schools,  and  ministers."  But  in  1851  sla 
very  had  demoralized  the  town  meetings  ;  it  had 
turned  the  training  days  into  military  schools 
for  slave  kidnappers ;  it  had  torn  the  anti-sla 
very  pages  out  of  the  school  books ;  and  it  had 
gagged  many  of  the  ministers,  or  made  them 
open  their  lips  in  such  a  way  that  they  would 
have  done  better  to  remain  gagged.  "  Honest 
John  Davis,"  as  he  was  called  —  Mr.  Sumner's 
first  colleague  —  when  asked  by  Mr.  Sumner 
what  was  his  final  opinion  of  public  life,  on 
leaving  it,  in  1853,  gave  it  in  these  brief  words  : 
"  At  Washington  slavery  rules  everything."  It 
was  into  such  a  scene  as  this  that  Mr.  Sumner 
was  sent  at  his  first  election. 


SUMNER  283 

He  was  sent  to  work  out  his  own  course 
absolutely.  He  had  no  party ;  he  was  to  create 
a  party.  He  had  no  firm  following.  The 
abolitionists  watched  him  with  hope,  but  not 
without  distrust ;  they  had  seen  so  many  fail. 
His  opponents  were  prepared  to  denounce  him  as 
a  man  of  one  idea,  if  he  devoted  himself  to  the 
slavery  question  alone ;  or  as  a  demagogue,  if  he 
took  up  any  other.  When  he  made  his  first 
speech  on  a  general  question  (a  land  bill),  it  is 
recorded  that  a  Boston  clergyman  said  it  "  be 
trayed  the  instincts  of  a  demagogue,  and  was 
designed  for  popularity  at  the  West." 

Then  came,  a  few  years  after,  the  attack  by 
Brooks.  At  the  beginning  of  that  session,  Mr. 
Sumner  had  said  to  my  brother :  "  This  ses 
sion  will  not  pass  without  the  Senate  Cham 
ber's  becoming  the  scene  of  some  unparalleled 
outrage."  Thus  clearly  did  he  understand  the 
path  he  was  treading.  The  assault  was  the 
legitimate  result  of  the  general  spirit  of  vio 
lence  then  prevailing,  North  and  South.  Theo 
dore  Parker  said  that  the  acorn  from  which 
Brooks's  bludgeon  grew  was  none  other  than 
the  Acorn,  that  brig  owned  in  Boston  and  char 
tered  by  the  United  States  government  to  take 
Sims  into  slavery.  The  Charleston  "  Mercury  " 
of  July  21,  1856,  said  of  the  assault  on  Mr. 
Sumner :  "  The  whole  affair  has  been  most 


284  CONTEMPORARIES 

opportune.  ...  He  [Mr.  Brooks]  has  from  the 
first  conducted  himself  with  good  taste,  good 
judgment,  and  good  spirit."  Mr.  Sumner  "is 
dead  in  the  esteem  of  every  man  not  a  poltroon, 
North  and  South."  Such  was  the  scene  of 
public  service  on  which  the  great  senator  fig 
ured.  Now  what  qualities  did  he  bring  to  it  ? 

He  brought,  first,  a  magnificent  physical 
organization,  just  in  its  prime.  There  is  an 
Arabian  proverb  that  no  man  is  called  of  God 
till  the  age  of  forty  ;  and  Sumner  was  just 
that  age  when  he  entered  the  Senate.  He  had 
a  grand,  imposing  presence,  strong  health,  and 
athletic  habits.  He  was,  if  I  mistake  not,  one 
of  the  few  persons  who  have  ever  swum  across 
the  Niagara  River  just  below  the  Falls.  Nia 
gara  first ;  slavery  afterward.  He  felt  fully  the 
importance  of  bodily  vigor,  and  I  remember 
that  once,  in  looking  at  a  fine  engraving  of 
Charles  Fourier,  in  my  study,  after  I  had  re 
marked  "  What  a  head  !  "  he  answered  :  "  Yes  ; 
and  what  a  body  !  A  head  is  almost  worthless 
without  an  adequate  body  to  sustain  it."  His 
whole  physique  marked  him  as  a  leader  and 
ruler  among  men;  and  I  remember  well  that 
when  I  first  visited  the  English  Parliament,  I 
looked  in  vain  among  Lords  and  Commons  for 
the  bodily  peer  of  Charles  Sumner. 

Then  let  us  consider  his  intellect.     The  very 


SUMNER  285 

highest  quality  of  intellect  it  is  not  safe  to  claim 
for  him.  The  highest  poetic  imagination,  bring 
ing  glory  out  of  common  things  ;  the  highest 
scientific  genius,  which  almost  partakes  of  the 
poetic  quality ;  the  finest  philosophic  discrimi 
nation  ;  the  military  or  administrative  genius 
-"the  art  Napoleon,"  —  these  were  not  his. 
He  had  not  even  the  rarest  manifestation  of 
statesmanlike  genius  —  that,  namely,  which 
solves  the  problem  and  gives  the  key,  as  was 
done  by  Samuel  Adams  in  the  Revolutionary 
period  and  by  Garrison  in  our  own  day.  Sum- 
ner  was  in  relation  to  Garrison  a  learner.  He 
had  read  "The  Liberator"  for  more  than  ten 
years  before  he  entered  public  life.  Indeed, 
Sumner  himself  never  claimed  to  belong  to  the 
rarest  class  of  original  minds.  He  said  to  me 
once,  in  relation  to  some  demand  upon  him 
which  he  thought  excessive  :  "  These  people 
forget  that  I  am  a  cistern,  not  a  fountain,  and 
require  time  to  fill  up." 

But  to  the  very  highest  type  of  secondary 
minds  he  certainly  belonged.  Jefferson  was 
not  so  great  as  Samuel  Adams,  but  he  put 
the  thoughts  of  Adams  into  words  that  made 
them  immortal.  Sumner,  like  Jefferson,  con 
tributed  the  intellectual  statements  needed  — 
put  the  new  "  Declaration  of  Independence " 
into  working  form.  His  successive  orations, 


286  CONTEMPORARIES 

by  their  very  titles,  gave  a  series  of  phrases 
that  were  half  battles,  as  was  said  of  Luther's 
words.  Grattan  said  that  all  the  speeches  of 
Demosthenes  were  not  equal  to  that  one  brief 
utterance  of  Chatham's,  —  "America  has  re 
sisted.  I  rejoice,  my  lords  !  "  Sumner's  phrases 
had  less  electricity  than  this,  but  they  had  a 
weighty  and  organizing  value.  "  Freedom  na 
tional,  slavery  sectional ;  "  "  The  crime  against 
Kansas  ; "  "  The  barbarism  of  slavery ;  "-  —  each 
of  these  hit  some  nail  precisely  on  the  head. 
Seward's  "  Irrepressible  Conflict "  was  the  only 
phrase  of  equal  value  from  any  other  source. 

But,  after  all,  the  great  characteristic  of  Sum 
ner's  intellect  is  not  to  be  ascertained  by  the 
qualitative  test,  but  by  the  quantitative.  Judged 
simply  by  quantity  his  intellectual  activity  was 
unequaled  among  the  Americans  of  his  gener 
ation.  Among  those  whom  I  have  personally 
known,  I  should  say  that  Theodore  Parker 
alone  could  be  compared  with  him  in  range  and 
comprehensiveness  of  intellectual  activity  ;  and 
though  Parker  had  a  far  more  poetic  nature, 
more  humor,  more  pathos,  more  homely  com 
mon  sense,  he  was  less  accurate  in  his  scholar 
ship  and  had  less  power  of  weighty  and  con 
secutive  thought.  It  was  said  of  Fox  that  every 
sentence  of  his  came  rolling  in  like  a  wave  of 
the  Atlantic,  three  thousand  miles  long.  It 


SUMNER  287 

was  the  same  with  the  statements  of  Sumner. 
They  consisted  of  long  chains  of  rhetoric,  of 
accumulated  facts,  of  erudite  illustration,  that 
might  have  been  cumbrous  and  tedious  had 
they  not  been  sustained  by  vigor  such  as  his. 
It  is  easy  enough  to  put  on  an  air  of  scholar 
ship ;  a  little  goes  a  great  way  with  those 
who  are  not  scholars.  But  Sumner  astonished 
scholars.  The  more  any  one  had  studied  any 
question,  the  more  amazing  were  the  floods  of 
light  poured  upon  it  when  stated  by  Sumner. 
Terseness,  condensation,  severe  simplicity,  were 
not  in  his  line.  His  merits  and  his  defects  lay 
in  another  direction.  He  had  what  President 
Dwight,  visiting  Boston  in  1810,  described  as 
"the  Boston  style  of  oratory,  —  a  florid  style." 
But  this  was  the  florid  quality  of  Gladstone, 
not  of  Peel,  of  whom  it  was  said  that  he  knew 
how  to  "  make  a  platitude  endurable  by  making 
it  pompous."  I  do  not  see  why  Sumner's  great 
orations  should  not  be  preserved  by  posterity 
with  those  of  Burke,  long  after  their  immediate 
occasion  has  passed  away.  Sumner  will  have 
the  permanent  advantage  over  Burke  that  he 
loved  liberty,  while  Burke  feared  it ;  and  Sum 
ner  had  also  the  temporary  advantage  that  he 
held  his  audiences  together  while  Burke  scat 
tered  his,  and  was  called  "  the  dinner  bell," 
from  his  faculty  of  thinning  out  the  House  of 
Commons. 


288  CONTEMPORARIES 

But  even  these  resources  of  the  physical  and 
intellectual  man  were  secondary  to  that  moral 
courage  and  that  absolute  rectitude  of  purpose 
which  even  his  bitterest  opponents  conceded  to 
Charles  Sumner.  There  is  in  Weiss's  ''Life 
of  Theodore  Parker"  a  remarkable  letter  ad 
dressed  by  him  to  Mr.  Sumner  after  his  elec 
tion,  and  dated  April  26,  185 1.  It  is  as  follows  : 

"  Perhaps  you  had  better  lay  this  away  till 
Sunday,  for  I  am  going  to  preach.  You  told 
me  once  that  you  were  in  morals,  not  politics. 
Now  I  hope  you  will  show  that  you  are  still  in 
morals,  although  in  politics.  I  hope  you  will 
be  the  senator  with  a  conscience.  The  capital 
error  of  all  our  politicians  is  this  :  with  under 
standing  and  political  sagacity,  with  cunning 
and  power  to  manage  men  in  the  heroic  degree, 
[yet]  in  moral  power,  in  desire  of  the  true 
and  the  right  — '  first  good,  first  perfect,  and 
first  fair '  -  —  they  are  behind  the  carpenters  and 
the  blacksmiths.  ...  I  consider  that  Massachu 
setts  has  put  you  where  you  have  no  right  to 
consult  for  the  ease  or  the  reputation  of  your 
self,  but  for  the  eternal  right.  All  of  our 
statesmen  build  on  the  opinion  of  to-day  a  house 
that  is  to  be  admired  to-morrow,  and  the  next 
day  to  be  torn  down  with  hooting.  I  hope  you 
will  build  on  the  Rock  of  Ages,  and  look  to 
eternity  for  your  justification." 


SUMNER  289 

He  did  look  to  eternity,  and  has  now  his 
justification  in  it.  But  I  think  Plutarch's 
"Lives"  can  show  nothing  more  simple  and 
noble  than  this  counsel  of  Parker  to  Sumner, 
or  than  the  life  by  which  Sumner  gave  answer 
to  it. 

It  is  further  to  be  noticed  that  his  moral 
standard  did  not  merely  aim  at  ends,  but  ex 
tended  to  means  also.  The  long  course  of  the 
anti-slavery  agitation  has  left  us  men  identi 
fied  with  many  of  the  noblest  aims,  whose 
low  choice  of  means  has  yet  plunged  them 
into  inconsistency  and  identified  them  with 
corrupt  and  debasing  ways.  No  such  stain 
rested  on  Sumner.  Can  any  one  fancy  him 
as  going  about  buttonholing  politicians  to  aid  in 
his  own  reelection,  or  pulling  any  wires  less 
visible  than  the  telegraphic  wires  which  bore 
his  speeches,  or  appearing  on  the  platform  of  a 
political  caucus  marshaling  people  to  vote  for 
himself  ? 

Let  me  not  shrink  from  saying  something, 
lastly,  as  to  the  limitations  of  Charles  Sumner. 
Dr.  Channing  says  that  if  a  man  is  not  great 
enough  to  be  painted  as  he  is  he  had  better  not 
be  painted  at  all.  It  is  perhaps  fortunate  that  no 
man  combines  all  points  of  superiority.  "  Care 
is  taken,"  says  Goethe,  "that  the  trees  shall 
not  grow  up  into  the  sky."  If  Sumner  had 


290  CONTEMPORARIES 

combined,  for  instance,  the  extraordinary  quali 
ties  of  his  own  nature  with  a  personal  fascina 
tion  like  that  of  Henry  Clay,  he  might  have 
been  so  powerful  as  to  be  dangerous  to  the 
liberties  of  the  country.  Who  knows  ?  But 
he  had  not  this  combination.  This  last  inex 
plicable  spell  of  personal  magnetism  was  not 
his.  He  convinced,  persuaded,  commanded, 
was  respected  and  loved.  But  when  John  Ran 
dolph,  after  fighting  against  Henry  Clay  all  his 
life,  caused  himself  to  be  raised  from  his  death 
bed  and  brought  into  the  House,  merely  that 
he  might  hear  the  voice  of  his  old  opponent 
once  more,  it  was  a  kind  of  personal  triumph 
such  as  Sumner  never  achieved.  Yet  his  na 
ture  was  very  homogeneous,  complete  in  its 
kind,  and  his  very  defects  were  "the  defects 
of  his  qualities,"  in  the  French  phrase.  His 
lack  of  humor  helped  his  earnestness,  but  took 
from  it  the  needful  relief.  His  occasional 
exaggeration,  as  in  dealing  with  England  and 
with  Grant,  was  the  exaggeration  of  a  practiced 
rhetorician,  so  familiar  with  his  own  weapons 
that  he  forgets  their  weight.  His  self-assertion 
was  the  frank  statement  of  an  unquestioned 
superiority,  which  a  less  honest  man  or  one 
of  more  sense  of  humor  would  easily  have  con 
cealed.  I  asked  him,  near  the  end  of  his  life, 
in  his  library  at  Washington,  what  he  thought 


SUMNER  291 

the  Supreme  Court  would  make  of  the  claim 
that  the  I4th  and  I5th  amendments  had  already 
enacted  woman  suffrage.  He  drew  himself  up, 
in  his  stately  way,  and  said  simply  :  "  I  suppose 
I  know  more  about  judges  than  any  man  in 
America."  The  self-assertion  sounded  almost 
startling,  until  he  went  back  to  his  early  know 
ledge  of  Marshall  and  Story,  and  sketched  rap 
idly  the  leading  judges  of  later  years,  till  he 
had  fairly  established  his  claim.  Then  he 
ended  by  saying  that  there  were  two  ways  in 
which  almost  any  judge  could  regard  almost  any 
question  —  according  to  the  letter  or  to  the 
spirit ;  and  that  whenever  any  man  on  the  Su 
preme  Bench  was  heartily  of  the  opinion  that 
women  ought  to  vote  he  would  probably  have 
little  difficulty  in  seeing  authority  for  woman 
suffrage  in  these  constitutional  amendments. 

It  is  impossible  to  say  how  far  the  alleged 
want  of  magnetism  or  sympathetic  attractive 
ness  in  Mr.  Sumner's  public  or  private  manner 
may  have  been  due  to  a  certain  loneliness  in 
his  life  and  to  the  want  of  the  amenities  of 
home  and  children.  Yet  it  is  very  incorrect  to 
say,  as  has  sometimes  been  said,  that  he  was 
indifferent  to  persons  and  cared  only  for  prin 
ciples.  I  have  never  known  in  public  life  so 
prompt  and  faithful  a  correspondent ;  or  one 
so  ready  to  espouse  the  cause  of  some  indi- 


292  CONTEMPORARIES 

vidual  man  or  woman  who  needed  aid.  He  had 
no  band  of  henchmen,  no  one  who  had  been 
won  to  support  him  for  value  received  ;  but  the 
blessings  of  the  poor,  the  friendless,  the  power 
less  were  his. 

It  remains  for  us  to  remember  that  his  suc 
cessors  are  not  to  be  found  among  those  who 
merely  sound  his  name  and  record  his  deeds, 
but  among  those  who  are  doing  what  he  left  un 
done  and  bearing  the  cross  he  bore.  Laurels 
in  battle  do  not  come  to  him  who,  when  the 
standard-bearer  falls,  only  pauses  with  bowed 
head  to  say,  "What  a  man  he  was,"  but  rather 
to  him  who  grasps  the  falling  flag,  and,  per 
haps,  himself  falling,  hands  it  to  another,  till  it 
has  passed  through  as  many  hands  as  there 
are  survivors  in  the  regiment.  When  Charles 
Sumner  came  forward  into  political  life,  it  was 
supposed  that  all  the  great  questions  were  set 
tled,  or,  at  least,  stated,  until  he  brought  the 
slavery  question  into  politics  and  made  it  take 
precedence  of  them  all.  The  same  delusion 
exists  now.  The  questions  that  still  remain 
unsettled  —  the  rights  of  woman,  the  rights  of 
labor,  the  principles  of  temperance  legislation  — 
these  may  yet  furnish  duties  as  arduous,  tests 
as  severe  as  any  that  Sumner  knew.  It  is  said 
of  Hereward,  "the  last  of  the  Saxons,"  that 
if  there  had  been  six  such  men  as  he  in  Eng- 


SUMNER  293 

land  the  Normans  would  never  have  entered 
it,  and  had  there  been  ten  such  men  the  Nor 
mans  would  have  been  driven  out.  Our  Here- 
ward  has  fallen ;  let  us  see  who  are  the  other 
nine. 


DR.  HOWE'S  ANTI-SLAVERY  CAREER 

IN  view  of  the  world-wide  fame  of  Dr.  Sam 
uel  Gridley  Howe  as  a  teacher  of  the  blind  and 
a  friend  of  Greek  liberty,  it  must  not  be  for 
gotten  that  in  the  anti-slavery  movement  also, 
he  played  a  part  wholly  characteristic  and  al 
most  unique.  He  was  a  natural  crusader  or 
paladin ;  a  man  in  whom  every  call  to  duty  took 
a  certain  chivalrous  aspect ;  who  seemed  a  little 
out  of  place  in  a  world  of  Quakers  or  non-re 
sistants,  even  when  men  of  those  types  were 
actually  leading  in  the  bravest  enterprises  of 
the  time.  While  most  of  those  around  him 
were  either  indifferent  to  the  wrong,  on  the  one 
side,  or  eschewed  carnal  weapons  on  the  other, 
he  could  not  forget  the  days  when  he  had  been 
surgeon  in  the  Greek  war  for  independence,  or 
had  seen  the  inside  of  a  Prussian  prison  for 
having  been  president  of  a  Polish  committee 
in  Paris. 

An  eminent  abolitionist  once  told  me  that  on 
visiting  Dr.  Howe  soon  after  his  marriage,  — 
which  took  place  in  1843,  —  the  latter  said  that 
in  his  opinion  some  movement  of  actual  force 


DR.  HOWE'S   ANTI-SLAVERY   CAREER    295 

would  yet  have  to  be  made  against  slavery,  and 
that  but  for  the  new  duties  he  had  assumed  by 
his  marriage,  he  should  very  likely  undertake 
some  such  enterprise  himself.  His  whole  anti- 
slavery  career  was  predicted  in  those  words. 
They  showed  him  as  he  was,  a  perfectly  chival 
rous  spirit,  working  under  the  limitations  of 
many  duties  and  cares. 

This  remark  must  have  been  made  about 
1844.  It  does  not  appear  that  he  then  enrolled 
himself  in  any  public  way  among  abolitionists. 
I  do  not  even  find  his  name  in  the  list  of  the 
Massachusetts  State  Texas  Committee,  formed 
in  October,  1845  ;  but  at  the  first  fugitive-slave 
case,  he  stepped  at  once  to  the  very  front. 
Many  still  living  will  remember  the  magnificent 
meeting  held  at  Faneuil  Hall  September  24, 
1846,  "to  consider  the  recent  case  of  kidnap 
ping  on  our  soil."  John  Quincy  Adams  presided 
on  that  occasion,  he  being  then  in  his  eightieth 
year,  and  saying  that  if  he  had  but  one  day  to 
live  he  would  use  it  to  be  there.  Dr.  Howe 
called  the  meeting  to  order,  and  organized  the 
whole,  the  letters  of  invited  guests  being  ad 
dressed  to  him.  He  also  made  the  opening 
speech,  of  which  every  sentence  was  a  sword- 
thrust.  John  A.  Andrew,  then  a  young  lawyer, 
read  the  resolutions ;  Sumner,  Charles  Francis 
Adams,  and  the  two  Phillipses  spoke;  and  a 


296  CONTEMPORARIES 

Vigilance  Committee  of  forty  was  finally  chosen 
with  Dr.  Howe  for  a  chairman.  That  Vigi 
lance  Committee,  afterward  enlarged,  contin 
ued  in  existence  through  all  the  fugitive  slave 
period;  and  the  history  of  Boston  will  be  in- 
complete  until  the  records  of  that  committee 
are  published. 

Dr.  Howe  was  nominated  for  Congress  that 
same  year  against  Mr.  Winthrop,  but  he  was 
defeated,  and  his  main  services  lay  outside  of 
politics.  The  fugitive-slave  period  in  Massa 
chusetts  differed  from  any  revolutionary  period 
before  or  since  in  this,  that  it  fell  in  a  time  of 
awkward  transition  from  physical  to  spiritual 
weapons  ;  and  while  the  air  was  full  of  revolu 
tion,  almost  all  the  revolutionists  were  ham 
pered  by  reverence  for  law,  or  else  by  non- 
resistance.  Most  of  the  Garrisonian  abolition 
ists  were  non-combatants  on  principle ;  while, 
on  the  other  hand,  the  voting  abolitionists  had 
a  controlling  desire  to  keep  within  the  law. 
Even  Theodore  Parker,  who  stood  between  these 
two  classes,  wished  people  to  rescue  slaves 
"  with  only  the  arms  their  mother  gave  them." 
The  result  was  that  among  all  the  anti-slavery 
men  in  Boston,  there  was  hardly  a  dozen  who 
had  quite  made  up  their  minds  to  fight.  Of 
that  small  number,  it  is  needless  to  say  that 
Dr.  Howe  was  one.  Six  weeks  in  a  Prussian 


DR.  HOWE'S   ANTI-SLAVERY   CAREER     297 

prison  were  as  good  as  a  liberal  education  in 
the  way  of  bearing  arms. 

One  of  the  most  remarkable  meetings  held  in 
Boston,  in  those  days,  was  one  which  occurred 
at  the  Tremont  Temple  during  the  Sims  case, 
April  9,  1851.  Horace  Mann  had  consented  to 
preside  on  condition  that  the  meeting  should 
be  pledged  to  strictly  legal  measures,  —  but 
Dr.  Howe,  who  regretted  this  scrupulousness, 
planned  to  have  the  evening  meeting  less  re 
stricted.  Unluckily  the  material  of  the  after 
noon  meeting  was  by  far  the  more  fiery,  because 
it  included  many  delegations  from  the  country 
towns,  who  were  as  a  rule  more  ardent  than 
the  city  audiences,  and  who  went  home  on  this 
occasion  disappointed.  After  one  speech  in 
especial,  as  Dr.  Howe  afterward  said,  "  the 
country  was  at  the  verge  of  a  revolution,"  for 
which,  I  think,  he  himself  was  ready ;  but  the 
next  speaker  threw  cold  water  on  it,  the  excite 
ment  passed,  the  evening  meeting  was  tame, 
and  nothing  was  done.  A  plan  of  rescue  was 
afterward  formed,  but  was  defeated  by  putting 
up  a  grating  at  the  window  of  Sims's  cell. 

Three  years  later  came  the  Burns  affair. 
During  the  interval,  or  part  of  it,  Dr.  Howe 
had  been  editing  the  "  Commonwealth  ;  "  the 
"  coalition  party  "  of  Democrats  and  Anti- 
slavery  Whigs  had  been  successful  in  the  State, 


298  CONTEMPORARIES 

and  the  public  mind  had  been  a  good  deal  edu 
cated.  Still,  when  a  meeting  of  the  Vigilance 
Committee  was  held,  on  the  day  of  the  Burns 
riot,  May  26,  1854,  it  was  found  impossible  to 
collect  even  twenty  names  pledged  to  physical 
resistance  under  any  single  leader,  and  even 
after  a  stirring  speech  by  Dr.  Howe,  it  ended  in 
appointing  only  an  executive  committee  of  six 
men,  afterward  increased  to  seven.  Napoleon 
said  that  there  was  but  one  thing  worse  for  an 
army  than  a  bad  general,  and  that  was  two 
good  generals.  We  had  seven  !  It  was  worse, 
in  that  respect,  than  Bull  Run. 

After  the  fugitive  -  slave  cases,  the  seat  of 
anti-slavery  excitement  was  transferred  for  a 
time  to  Kansas.  Before  the  civil  war  began, 
Dr.  Howe  was  (in  1854)  one  of  the  original 
corporators  in  the  Emigrant  Aid  Society,  by 
which  it  was  hoped  to  secure  that  territory 
peaceably  to  freedom.  Then  came  a  time,  in 
1856,  when  that  proved  impossible,  and,  as  you 
may  read  in  Theodore  Parker's  letters,  "  Dr. 
Howe  and  others  raised  $5,000  one  day  last 
week  to  buy  Sharpe's  rifles."  Parties  were  then 
organized  —  still  emigrant  parties,  but  armed 
by  the  organizing  committees  —  in  Boston  and 
Worcester.  When  the  Missouri  River  was 
blocked  up  by  the  "  border  ruffians,"  as  they 
were  called,  and  one  of  the  first  parties  was 


DR.  HOWE'S    ANTI-SLAVERY   CAREER    299 

turned  back,  Dr.  Howe  went  to  St.  Louis  to 
meet  them,  and  to  reorganize  the  scattered 
forces.  Through  all  that  struggle,  no  Eastern 
man,  save  George  L.  Stearns,  —  God  bless  his 
memory !  —  did  more  to  save  Kansas  to  free 
dom  than  he.  I  think  the  State  Kansas  Com 
mittee  was  organized  at  the  Blind  Asylum  office 
on  Bromfield  Street.  Almost  every  one  who 
came  in  or  out  of  that  office  was  blind ;  but  Dr. 
Howe's  keen  sight  restored  the  balance,  for  he 
could  see  beyond  the  Missouri. 

The  next  anti-slavery  milestone  was  when, 
in  1858,  John  Brown  came  eastward.  A  keen 
thinker  has  said  that  every  path  on  earth  may 
lead  to  the  dwelling  of  a  hero  ;  and  of  course 
the  track  was  plain  enough  between  John 
Brown's  door  and  that  of  Dr.  Howe.  Few,  if 
any,  knew  Captain  Brown's  plans  in  full  detail ; 
but  the  project  of  a  slave  stampede  on  a  large 
scale  was  quite  in  Dr.  Howe's  line,  and  he,  with 
others,  entered  into  it  cordially.  Then  came 
the  betrayal  by  Hugh  Forbes,  which  so  dis 
turbed  John  Brown's  Eastern  friends  that  his 
"  marching  on  "  was  delayed  for  more  than  a 
year,  —  a  delay  approved  neither  by  Brown  him 
self  nor  Dr.  Howe,  but  accepted  as  inevitable 
by  both.  After  the  failure  of  the  Harper's 
Ferry  attempt,  Dr.  Howe  left  the  United  States 
for  a  short  time,  —  needlessly,  as  he  afterward 


300  CONTEMPORARIES 

thought,  —  and  was  later  examined  at  Washing- 
ton  before  a  congressional  committee,  but  with 
no  result.  There  was  some  difference  of  opin 
ion  among  John  Brown's  friends  as  to  their 
duty  after  his  death ;  but  Dr.  Howe  was  never 
much  troubled  by  the  necessity  of  satisfying 
the  consciences  of  others,  if  he  could  only 
satisfy  his  own. 

A  year  or  more  later,  I  remember  him  as  aid 
ing,  in  the  Music  Hall,  and  in  the  neighboring 
streets,  to  ward  off  danger  from  Wendell  Phil 
lips  during  a  series  of  riotous  days.  Again,  on 
the  very  day  after  the  attack  on  our  troops  in 
Baltimore,  he  threw  himself  with  his  old  hearti 
ness  into  a  project  formed  among  us,  of  taking 
a  hint  from  John  Brown  and  putting  a  guerrilla 
party  instantly  into  Virginia,  thus  saving  Wash 
ington  by  kindling  a  back  fire.  The  steps 
promptly  taken  in  recruiting  troops  prevented 
this  project  from  being  carried  farther,  but  it 
was  precisely  the  scheme  to  suit  Dr.  Howe. 
His  services  during  the  civil  war  itself,  I  leave 
to  others. 

His  anti-slavery  life  was,  in  short,  that  of  a 
man  of  chivalrous  nature,  with  a  constitutional 
love  for  freedom  and  for  daring  enterprises, 
taking  more  interest  in  action  than  in  mere 
agitation,  and  having,  moreover,  other  fields  of 
usefulness  which  divided  his  zeal.  With  a  pe- 


DR.  HOWE'S    ANTI-SLAVERY   CAREER     301 

culiarly  direct  and  thrilling  sort  of  eloquence, 
and  a  style  of  singular  condensation  and  power, 
abrupt,  almost  impetuous,  —  like  a  sword  with 
no  ornament  but  the  dents  upon  the  blade,  — 
he  yet  knew  that  the  chief  end  of  life  is  action, 
and  not  thought.  With  all  his  intellectual  ac 
complishments,  he  would,  as  Thoreau  said  of 
John  Brown,  "  have  left  a  Greek  accent  slant 
ing  the  wrong  way,  and  righted  up  a  fallen 
man." 


GRANT 

WHEN  any  great  historical  event  is  past,  fame 
soon  begins  to  concentrate  itself  on  one  or  two 
leading  figures,  dropping  inexorably  all  minor 
ones.  How  furious  was  the  strife  waged  in 
England  over  West  India  emancipation,  and 
then  over  the  abolition  of  the  corn  -  laws ! 
Time,  money,  intellect,  reputation,  were  freely 
bestowed  for  both  these  enterprises.  Those 
great  sacrifices  are  now  forgotten ;  the  very 
names  of  those  who  made  them  are  lost ;  pos 
terity  associates  only  Wilberforce  and  Clarkson 
with  the  one  agitation,  Cobden  and  Bright  with 
the  other.  When  we  turn  to  the  war  which 
saved  the  Union  and  brought  emancipation,  we 
find  that  the  roll  of  fame  is  similarly  narrowing. 
There  is  scarcely  an  American  under  thirty  who 
is  familiar  with  even  the  name  of  John  P.  Hale, 
whom  Garrison  called  "the  Abdiel  of  New 
Hampshire ; "  or  of  Henry  Wilson,  Vice-Presi 
dent  of  the  United  States,  and  historian  of  that 
slave  power  which  he  did  so  much  toward  over 
throwing.  The  acute  and  decorous  Seward, 
the  stately  Chase,  the  imperious  Stanton,  even 


GRANT  303 

the  high-minded  and  commanding  Sumner, 
with  his  reservoirs  of  knowledge,  —  all  these 
are  steadily  fading  from  men's  memories.  Fifty 
years  hence,  perhaps,  the  mind  of  the  nation 
will  distinctly  recognize  only  two  figures  as 
connected  with  all  that  great  upheaval, —  Lin 
coln  and  Grant. 

Of  these  two,  Grant  will  have  one  immeasur 
able  advantage,  in  respect  to  fame,  —  that  he 
wrote  his  own  memoirs.  A  man  who  has  done 
this  can  never  become  a  myth ;  his  individuality 
is  as  sure  of  preservation  as  is  that  of  Caesar. 
Something  must  of  course  depend  upon  the 
character  of  such  an  autobiography  :  it  may  by 
some  mischance  reveal  new  weaknesses  only,  or 
reaffirm  and  emphasize  those  previously  known. 
Here  again  Grant  is  fortunate :  his  book  is  one 
of  the  greatest  of  his  victories,  and  those  who 
most  criticised  his  two  administrations  may  now 
be  heard  doubting  whether  they  did,  after  all, 
any  justice  to  the  man.  These  memoirs  have 
that  first  and  highest  quality  both  of  literature 
and  manhood,  simplicity.  Without  a  trace  of 
attitudinizing  or  a  suspicion  of  special  pleading, 
written  in  a  style  so  plain  and  terse  that  it  sug 
gests  the  reluctant  conversation  of  a  naturally 
reticent  man,  they  would  have  a  charm  if  the 
author  had  never  emerged  from  obscurity  except 
to  write  them.  Considered  as  the  records  of  the 


304  CONTEMPORARIES 

foremost  soldier  of  his  time,  they  are  unique 
and  of  inestimable  value. 

This  value  is  reinforced,  at  every  point,  by  a 
certain  typical  quality  which  the  book  possesses. 
As  with  Lincoln,  so  with  Grant,  the  reader  hails 
with  delight  this  exhibition  of  the  resources  of 
the  Average  American.  It  is  not  in  the  least 
necessary  for  the  success  of  republican  govern 
ment  that  it  should  keep  great  men,  so  to 
speak,  on  tap  all  the  time;  it  is  rather  our 
theory  to  be  guided  in  public  affairs  by  the 
general  good  sense  of  the  community.  What 
we  need  to  know  is  whether  leaders  will  be 
forthcoming  for  specific  duties  when  needed ; 
and  in  this  the  civil  war  confirmed  the  popu 
lar  faith,  and  indeed  developed  it  almost  into 
fatalism.  It  is  this  representative  character  of 
the  book  which  fascinates ;  the  way  in  which 
destiny,  looking  about  for  material,  took  Grant 
and  moulded  him  for  a  certain  work.  Ap 
parently,  there  was  not  in  him,  during  his 
boyhood,  the  slightest  impulse  towards  a 
military  life.  He  consented  to  go  to  West 
Point  merely  that  he  might  visit  New  York 
and  Philadelphia  —  that  done,  he  would  have 
been  glad  of  any  steamboat  or  railroad  accident 
that  should  make  it  for  a  time  impossible  to 
enter  the  Academy.  The  things  that  he  enj  oyed 
were  things  that  had  scarcely  the  slightest 


GRANT  305 

reference  to  the  career  that  lay  unconsciously 
before  him.  Sydney  Smith  had  a  brother,  known 
as  Bobus,  who  bore  through  life  this  one  dis 
tinction  :  that  he  had  been  thrashed  as  a  boy 
by  a  schoolmate  who  subsequently  became  the 
Duke  of  Wellington.  "He  began  with  you," 
said  Sydney  Smith,  "and  ended  with  Napo 
leon."  Grant  began  by  breaking  in  a  trouble 
some  horse  and  ended  with  the  Southern  Con 
federacy. 

There  is  always  a  certain  piquant  pleasure  in 
the  visible  disproportion  of  means  to  ends.  All 
Grant's  early  preparation  or  non-preparation  for 
military  life  inspires  the  same  feeling  of  gratified 
surprise  with  which  we  read  that  the  young 
Napoleon,  at  the  military  school  of  St.  Cyr, 
was  simply  reported  as  "very  healthy."  At 
West  Point,  Grant  was  at  the  foot  of  his  class 
in  the  tactics,  and  he  was  dropped  from  sergeant 
to  private  in  the  junior  year.  A  French  or  Ger 
man  officer  would  have  looked  with  contempt 
on  a  military  cadet  who  never  had  been  a  sports 
man,  and  did  not  think  he  should  ever  have 
the  courage  to  fight  a  duel.  It  would  seem  as 
if  fate  had  the  same  perplexing  problem  in 
choosing  its  man  for  commander-in-chief  that 
every  war  governor  found  in  his  choice  of 
colonels  and  captains.  Who  could  tell,  how 
was  any  one  to  predict,  what  sort  of  soldier 


306  CONTEMPORARIES 

any  citizen  would  be  ?  Grant  himself,  when  he 
came  to  appoint  three  men  in  Illinois  as  staff 
officers,  failed,  by  his  own  statement,  in  two  of 
the  selections.  What  traits,  what  tendencies, 
shown  in  civil  life,  furnished  the  best  guar 
antee  for  military  abilities  ?  None,  perhaps, 
that  could  be  definitely  named,  except  habitual 
leadership  in  physical  exercises.  Of  all  po 
sitions,  the  captaincy  of  a  college  crew  or  a 
baseball  club  was  surest  to  supply  qualities 
available  for  military  command.  But  even  for 
athletic  exercises,  except  so  far  as  horses  were 
concerned,  Grant  had  no  recorded  taste. 

Nor  does  his  career  in  the  Mexican  war 
seem  to  have  settled  the  point  —  and  his  ani 
mated  sketch  of  that  event,  though  one  of 
the  most  graphic  ever  written,  fails  to  give  any 
signal  proof  of  great  attributes  of  leadership. 
This  part  of  his  book  is  especially  interesting 
as  showing  the  really  small  scale  of  the  military 
events  which  then  looked  large.  It  is  hard 
for  us  to  believe  that  General  Taylor  invaded 
Mexico  with  three  thousand  men,  a  force  no 
greater  than  was  commanded  at  different  times 
by  dozens  of  mere  colonels  during  the  war 
for  the  Union.  It  is  equally  hard  to  believe 
that  these  men  carried  flint-lock  muskets,  and 
that  their  heaviest  ordnance  consisted  of  two 
eighteen  -  pound  guns,  while  the  Mexican  ar- 


GRANT  307 

tillery  was  easily  evaded  by  simply  stepping 
out  of  the  way  of  the  balls.  It  is  difficult  to 
convince  ourselves  that  General  Taylor  never 
wore  uniform,  and  habitually  sat  upon  his 
horse  with  both  feet  hanging  on  the  same  side. 
Yet  it  was  amid  so  little  pomp  and  circumstance 
as  this  that  Grant  first  practiced  war.  The 
experience  developed  in  him  sufficient  moral 
insight  to  see,  all  along,  that  it  was  a  contest 
in  which  his  own  country  was  wrong  ;  and  the 
knowledge  he  gained  of  the  characters  of  his 
fellow  officers  was  simply  invaluable  when  he 
came  to  fight  against  some  of  them.  At  Fort 
Donelson  he  knew  that  with  any  force,  how 
ever  small,  he  could  march  within  gunshot  of 
General  Pillow's  intrenchments,  —  and  when 
General  Buckner  said  to  him,  after  the  sur 
render,  that  if  he  had  been  in  command  the 
Union  army  would  not  have  got  up  to  the  fort 
so  easily,  Grant  replied  that  if  Buckner  had 
been  in  command  he  should  not  have  tried  to 
do  it  in  the  way  he  did. 

He  was  trained  also  by  his  Mexican  campaign 
in  that  habit  of  simple  and  discriminating  justice 
to  an  opponent  which  is  so  vital  in  war.  The 
enormous  advantages  gained  by  the  Americans 
over  superior  numbers  during  that  contest  have 
always  been  rather  a  puzzle  to  the  reader. 
Grant  makes  it  clear  when  he  says  that,  though 


3o8  CONTEMPORARIES 

the  Mexicans  often  "stood  up  as  well  as  any 
troops  ever  did,"  they  were  a  mere  mob  for 
want  of  trained  supervision.  He  adds,  with 
some  humor,  "  The  trouble  seemed  to  be  the 
lack  of  experience  among  the  officers,  which 
led  them,  after  a  certain  period,  to  simply 
quit  without  being  whipped,  but  because  they 
had  fought  enough."  He  notes  also  that  our 
losses  in  those  battles  were  relatively  far 
greater  than  theirs,  and  that  for  this  reason, 
and  because  of  the  large  indemnity  paid  at  last, 
the  Mexicans  still  celebrate  Chapultepec  and 
Molino  del  Rey  as  their  victories,  very  much 
as  Americans,  under  circumstances  somewhat 
similar,  celebrate  the  battle  of  Bunker  Hill. 
Finally,  Grant  has  the  justice  to  see  that,  as 
Mexico  has  now  a  standing  army  and  trained 
officers,  the  war  of  1 846-48  would  be  an  impos 
sibility  in  this  generation. 

When  Grant  comes  to  deal  with  the  war  for 
the  Union  itself,  his  prevailing  note  of  simplicity 
gives  a  singularly  quiet  tone  to  the  narrative. 
In  his  hands  the  tales  of  Shiloh  and  Donelson 
are  told  with  far  less  of  sound  and  fury  than 
the  boys'  football  game  in  "Tom  Brown  at 
Rugby."  In  reading  the  accounts  of  these 
victories,  it  seems  as  if  anybody  might  have 
won  them  ;  just  as  the  traveler,  looking  from 
Chamonix  at  the  glittering  slopes  of  Mont 


GRANT  309 

Blanc,  feels  as  if  there  were  nothing  to  do  but 
to  walk  right  up.  Did  any  one  in  history  ever 
accomplish  so  much  as  Grant  with  so  little  con 
scious  expenditure  of  force,  or  meet  dangers  and 
worries  so  imperturbably  ?  "  I  told  them  that 
I  was  not  disturbed."  "  Why  there  should  have 
been  a  panic  I  do  not  see."  This  is  the  sort  of 
remark  that  occurs  at  intervals  throughout  the 
memoirs,  and  usually  at  the  crisis  of  affairs; 
and  this  denotes  the  conquering  temperament. 
Perhaps  the  climax  of  this  expression  is  found 
when  Grant  says  incidentally,  "  While  a  battle 
is  raging,  one  can  see  his  enemy  mowed  down 
by  the  thousand,  or  even  the  ten  thousand,  with 
great  composure ;  but  after  the  battle  these 
scenes  are  distressing,  and  one  is  naturally  dis 
posed  to  do  as  much  to  alleviate  the  suffering 
of  an  enemy  as  [of]  a  friend."  It  is  the  word 
"  composure  "  that  is  here  characteristic  ;  many 
men  would  share  in  the  emotion,  but  very  few 
would  describe  it  by  this  placid  phrase.  Again, 
the  same  quality  is  shown  when,  in  describing  the 
siege  of  Vicksburg,  after  "the  nearest  approach 
to  a  council  of  war  "  he  ever  held,  Grant  pithily 
adds,  "  Against  the  general  and  almost  unani 
mous  judgment  of  the  council,  I  sent  the  fol 
lowing  letter,"  -  -  this  containing  essentially  the 
terms  that  were  accepted.  Indeed,  it  is  needless 
to  point  out  how  imperturbable  must  have  been 


3io  CONTEMPORARIES 

the  character  of  the  man  who  would  take  with 
him  on  a  campaign  his  oldest  son,  a  boy  of 
twelve,  and  say  of  him  at  the  end,  "  My  son  .  .  . 
caused  no  anxiety  either  to  me  or  to  his  mother, 
who  was  at  home.  He  looked  out  for  himself > 
and  was  in  every  battle  of  the  campaign." 

This  phlegmatic  habit  made  General  Grant 
in  some  respects  uninteresting,  as  compared, 
for  instance,  with  the  impulsive  and  exuberant 
Sherman ;  but  it  gave  him  some  solid  and  ad 
mirable  minor  qualities.  "  Our  army,"  said 
Uncle  Toby,  "swore  terribly  in  Flanders ;"  but 
the  commander  of  the  great  Union  army,  by 
his  own  statement,  was  "  not  aware  of  ever  hav 
ing  used  a  profane  expletive"  in  his  life.  There 
is  no  more  curious  and  inexplicable  character 
istic  than  the  use  of  language.  Lincoln  im 
presses  one  as  representing,  on  the  whole,  a 
higher  type  of  character  than  Grant  —  more 
sympathetic,  more  sensitive,  more  poetic.  Yet 
Lincoln  would  tell  an  indelicate  story  with  the 
zest  of  a  bar-room  lounger,  while  Grant,  by  the 
general  testimony  of  his  staff  officers,  disliked 
and  discouraged  everything  of  the  kind.  There 
is  a  mediaeval  tale  of  a  monk  who  was  asked  by 
a  peasant  to  teach  him  a  psalm,  and  he  chose 
that  beginning  with  the  verse,  "  I  will  take  heed 
to  my  ways  that  I  offend  not  with  my  tongue." 
Having  learned  thus  much,  the  peasant  went 


GRANT  311 

away,  saying  that  he  would  try  and  practice  it 
before  going  farther ;  but  he  never  returned, 
not  having  succeeded  in  living  up  to  the  first 
verse.  Grant  was  apparently  more  successful. 
Mere  imperturbability  would,  however,  be 
useless  to  a  commander  without  that  indefin 
able  quality  known  as  military  instinct ;  and  it 
was  this  which  Grant  possessed  in  a  higher  de 
gree,  probably,  than  any  other  man  of  his  time. 
Like  all  instinct,  it  is  a  thing  hard  to  distin 
guish  from  the  exceedingly  rapid  putting  of  this 
and  that  together ;  as  where  Grant  at  Fort  Don- 
elson,  finding  that  the  knapsacks  of  the  slain 
enemy  were  filled  with  rations,  saw  at  once  that 
they  were  trying  to  get  away,  and  renewed 
the  attack  successfully.  Again,  when  General 
Buell  had  some  needless  anxiety  at  Nashville 
and  sent  for  large  reinforcements,  Grant  told 
him,  on  arriving  at  the  scene  of  action,  that  he 
was  mistaken ;  the  enemy  was  not  advancing, 
but  retreating.  General  Buell  informed  him 
that  there  was  fighting  in  progress  only  ten  or 
twelve  miles  away ;  upon  which  Grant  said  that 
this  fighting  was  undoubtedly  with  the  rear 
guard  of  the  Confederates,  who  were  trying  to 
carry  off  with  them  all  the  stores  they  could, 
• — and  so  it  proved.  Indeed,  it  was  from  an 
equally  prompt  recognition  of  what  was  really 
needed  that  he  pressed  on  Vicksburg  at  all. 


312     „  CONTEMPORARIES 

Sherman,  usually  classed  as  daring  and  adven 
turous,  dissuaded  him,  and  wished  him  to  hold 
fast  to  his  base  of  supplies.  Grant,  usually 
esteemed  cautious,  insisted  on  going  on,  saying 
that  the  whole  country  needed  a  decisive  vic 
tory  just  then,  even  if  won  at  a  great  risk. 

The  very  extent  of  Grant's  military  command 
has  in  one  respect  impaired  his  reputation ;  be 
cause  he  marshaled  more  men  than  his  oppo 
nents,  he  has  been  assumed  to  be  less  great  as 
a  soldier  than  they  were.  The  "  Saturday  Re 
view,"  for  instance,  forgetting  that  interior  lines 
may  make  a  small  force  practically  equivalent 
to  a  large  one,  treats  Grant's  success,  to  this 
day,  as  merely  the  irresistible  preponderance  of 
greater  numbers.  But  it  was  precisely  here 
that  Grant  was  tested  as  Lee  was  not.  To  say 
that  it  is  easier  to  succeed  with  a  larger  force 
than  a  smaller  one  is  like  saying  that  it  is  easier 
to  get  across  the  country  with  a  four-in-hand 
than  in  a  pony  phaeton  :  it  is  all  very  true  if 
the  road  is  smooth  and  straight  and  the  team 
well  broken  ;  but  if  the  horses  are  balky  and 
the  road  a  wilderness,  the  inexperienced  driver 
will  be  safer  with  a  single  steed.  The  one  thing 
that  crushes  a  general  of  secondary  ability  is 
to  have  more  men  than  he  knows  how  to  han 
dle  ;  his  divisions  simply  get  into  one  another's 
way,  and  his  four-in-hand  is  in  a  hopeless  tan- 


GRANT  313 

gle.  Many  a  man  has  failed  with  a  great  force 
who  would  have  been  superb  with  a  Spartan 
band.  Garibaldi  himself  did  not  fit  well  into 
the  complex  mechanism  of  a  German  army. 
"  Captain,"  said  a  bewildered  volunteer  naval 
lieutenant,  accustomed  to  handling  his  own 
small  crew  upon  the  quarter-deck  of  his  mer 
chant  vessel,  — "  captain,  if  you  will  just  go 
below,  and  take  two  thirds  of  these  men  with 
you,  I  '11  have  this  ship  about  in  no  time."  It 
is  possible  that  Lee  might  have  commanded  a 
million  men  as  effectively  as  Grant  did,  but  we 
shall  never  know,  for  that  brilliant  general  had 
no  opportunity  to  make  the  experiment.  Mean 
while,  it  is  a  satisfaction  to  observe  that  the 
most  willing  European  critic  can  impair  the 
fame  of  one  great  American  soldier  only  by 
setting  up  that  of  another. 

Which  is  the  more  interesting  matter  of 
study  for  posterity  in  the  career  of  a  great  gen 
eral,  the  course  of  his  campaigns  or  the  devel 
opment  of  his  character  ?  The  latter  half  of 
Grant's  life  may  be  read  from  either  of  these 
points  of  view;  but  probably  its  greatest  and 
most  lasting  interest  will  be  from  its  elucida 
tion  of  the  personal  traits  that  marked  the  man, 
-  its  biographical  rather  than  its  historical 
aspect.  Behind  the  battles  lay  the  genius  or 
individual  quality,  whatever  it  was,  which  fought 


314  CONTEMPORARIES 

those  battles  ;  and  which,  in  the  tremendous 
competition  of  military  selection,  left  this  man 
above  all  his  immediate  competitors  in  his  own 
field.  Even  in  regard  to  the  lives  of  Caesar 
and  Napoleon,  we  can  observe  that  for  one  per 
son  who  enters  into  the  details  of  the  strategy, 
there  are  ten  who  are  interested  in  the  evolu 
tion  of  the  man.  But  in  the  case  of  Grant  a 
new  and  peculiar  interest  is  developed,  for  this 
reason,  that  he  is  the  first  great  and  conquer 
ing  commander  developed  by  modern  republican 
institutions.  This  makes  it  almost  certain  that 
he  will  be  one  of  the  monumental  men  in  his 
tory  ;  and  there  is  therefore  no  problem  of  the 
kind  more  interesting  than  to  consider  his  char 
acter  in  the  almost  unerring  light  thrown  by 
autobiography,  and  to  comprehend  what  man 
ner  of  man  it  is  that  has  been  added,  in  our 
own  day,  to  those  of  whom  Plutarch  wrote. 

It  is  noticeable,  in  Grant's  Personal  Memoirs, 
that  the  second  volume  has  the  same  sim 
plicity  which  was  shown  in  the  first.  It  would 
not  have  been  strange  if  the  habit  of  writing 
about  himself  —  an  exercise  so  wholly  new  to 
Grant  —  had  by  degrees  impaired  this  quality 
as  the  book  went  on  ;  but  it  really  characterizes 
the  later  pages  as  much  as  the  earlier,  and  the 
work  might,  so  far  as  concerns  this  feature, 
have  been  struck  off  at  a  white  heat.  The 


GRANT  315 

author  never  poses  nor  attitudinizes  —  never 
wavers  for  an  instant  from  his  purpose  to  tell 
plain  facts  in  the  plainest  possible  way.  The 
tremendous  scenes  through  which  he  has  passed 
never  overwhelm  or  blur  his  statement ;  he  tells 
of  the  manoeuvring  of  hundreds  of  thousands 
of  men  as  quietly  as  if  he  were  narrating  a  con 
test  of  fishing-boats  at  Long  Branch.  When  he 
describes  that  famous  interview  between  him 
self  and  General  Lee,  in  which  was  settled  the 
permanent  destiny  of  the  American  nation,  the 
tale  is  told  far  more  quietly  than  the  ordinary 
reporter  would  describe  the  negotiations  for  a 
college  rowing-match.  Such  a  description,  read 
in  connection  with  Lincoln's  Gettysburg  ad 
dress,  shows  that  simplicity  stands  first  among 
all  literary  gifts  ;  that  the  greater  the  occasion, 
the  more  apt  men  are  to  be  simple  ;  and  sug 
gests  that  no  time  or  place  has  ever  surpassed, 
in  this  respect,  the  examples  left  behind  by 
these  two  modern  American  men. 

Next  to  the  unconscious  exhibition  of  char 
acter  given  by  every  man  in  writing  about  him 
self  comes  the  light  indirectly  thrown  upon  his 
own  nature  by  his  way  of  judging  of  others.  In 
this  respect,  also,  Grant's  quietness  of  tone 
places  him  at  great  advantage.  He  sometimes 
praises  ardently,  but  he  censures  very  moder 
ately.  Of  Bragg' s  disastrous  tactics  at  Chatta- 


3i6  CONTEMPORARIES 

nooga  he  only  says,  "  I  have  never  been  able  to 
see  the  wisdom  of  this  move."  Of  Buell's  re 
fusal  to  accept  a  command  under  Sherman,  on 
the  ground  that  he  had  previously  ranked  Sher 
man,  Grant  says,  "  The  worst  excuse  a  soldier 
can  give  for  declining  service  is  that  he  once 
ranked  the  commander  he  is  ordered  to  report 
to."  Again,  when  a  question  arose  between 
Palmer  and  Schofield,  as  to  whether  the  latter 
had  a  right  to  command  the  former,  the  com 
ment  is,  "  If  he  [Palmer]  did  raise  this  question 
while  an  action  was  going  on,  that  act  alone  was 
exceedingly  reprehensible." 

That  besetting  sin  of  military  commanders, 
the  habit  of  throwing  the  responsibility  for  fail 
ure  upon  subordinates,  never  seems  to  tempt 
Grant.  In  speaking  of  Burnside's  losing  an  im 
portant  advantage  at  Spottsylvania,  he  says,  "  I 
attach  no  blame  to  Burnside  for  this,  but  I  do 
to  myself,  for  not  having  a  staff  officer  with 
him  to  report  to  me  his  position."  When  we 
compare  this  guardedness  of  tone  with  the 
sweeping  authoritativeness  which  marks  many 
of  our  civilian  critics  of  campaigns,  the  differ 
ence  is  certainly  most  gratifying.  The  only 
matters  that  rouse  Grant  to  anything  like  wrath 
in  the  telling  are  those  acts  which  imply  crimes 
against  humanity,  like  the  massacre  of  colored 
troops  at  Fort  Pillow ;  and  in  this  case  he  sim- 


GRANT  317 

ply  characterizes  Forrest's  report  of  the  affair 
as  something  "  which  shocks  humanity  to  read." 
He  does  not  even  allow  himself  the  luxury  of 
vehemence  against  fate,  or  fortune,  or  inevita 
ble  destiny.  Even  when  he  describes  his  im 
mense  local  obstacles  in  the  country  round 
Spottsylvania,  —  a  heavily  timbered  region,  full 
of  little  streams  surrounded  by  wooded  and 
marshy  bottom  lands, — he  gently  says,  "It 
was  a  much  better  country  to  conduct  a  de 
fensive  campaign  in  than  an  offensive  one." 
The  man  who  can  speak  charitably  of  Virginia 
swamps  may  certainly  lay  claim  to  that  virtue 
which  is  chief  among  the  blessed  three. 

The  severest  test  offered  in  Grant's  memoirs, 
as  to  his  judgment  on  men,  is  in  his  estimate 
of  one  whom  he  had  allowed,  in  the  opinion 
of  many,  to  be  most  grievously  wronged,  —  the 
late  Major- General  Gouverneur  K.  Warren. 
The  great  civil  war  caused  a  vast  multitude  of 
deaths,  directly  and  indirectly,  but  among  all 
these  there  was  but  one  conspicuous  and  un 
questionable  instance  of  broken  heart,  —  in  the 
case  of  that  high-minded  and  most  estimable 
man  who  was  removed  by  Sheridan  from  the 
command  of  an  army  corps  just  before  the 
battle  of  Five  Forks,  and  who  spent  the  rest 
of  his  life  in  vainly  endeavoring  to  secure 
even  an  investigation  before  a  Court  of  In- 


3i8  CONTEMPORARIES 

quiry.  All  who  remember  General  Warren's 
refined  and  melancholy  face,  with  its  permanent 
look  of  hopeless  and  crushing  sorrow,  must  have 
turned  eagerly  to  those  pages  of  the  Personal 
Memoirs  in  which  his  case  was  mentioned. 
Instead  of  evading  the  subject,  Grant  met  it 
frankly.  It  has  always  been  supposed  among 
the  friends  of  General  Warren  that  the  main 
objection  to  ordering  a  Court  of  Inquiry  in  his 
case  was  the  known  affection  of  the  commander- 
in-chief  for  Sheridan,  and  his  willingness  to 
let  Warren  be  sacrificed  rather  than  expose  his 
favorite  officer  to  blame.  Those  who  have  read 
this  book  will  be  satisfied  that  no  such  theory 
will  suffice.  It  is  upon  himself  that  Grant 
takes  the  main  responsibility  of  Warren's  dis 
placement.  He  had  made,  as  he  avers,  a  careful 
study  of  Warren's  peculiar  temperament,  long 
before  this  event  occurred.  He  had  at  first 
felt  in  him  a  confidence  so  great  that  he  would 
have  put  him  in  Meade's  place  had  that  officer 
fallen  (ii.  216),  but  he  came  gradually  to  a  very 
different  opinion.  He  always  regarded  him  as 
a  "gallant  soldier,  an  able  man,"  and  always 
thought  him  "thoroughly  imbued  with  the 
solemnity  and  importance  of  the  duty  he  had 
to  perform."  But  he  thus  analyzes  his  character 
(ii.  214)  :- 

"  Warren's  difficulty  was  twofold :  when  he 


GRANT  319 

received  an  order  to  do  anything,  it  would  at 
once  occur  to  his  mind  how  all  the  balance  of 
the  army  should  be  engaged  so  as  to  properly 
cooperate  with  him.  His  ideas  were  generally 
good,  but  he  would  forget  that  the  person  giv 
ing  him  orders  had  thought  of  others  at  the 
time  he  had  of  him.  In  like  manner,  when 
he  did  get  ready  to  execute  an  order,  after 
giving  most  intelligent  instructions  to  division 
commanders,  he  would  go  in  with  one  division, 
holding  the  others  in  reserve,  until  he  could 
superintend  their  movements  in  person  also, 
—  forgetting  that  division  commanders  could 
execute  an  order  without  his  presence.  His 
difficulty  was  constitutional  and  beyond  his  con 
trol.  He  was  an  officer  of  superior  ability, 
quick  perceptions,  and  personal  courage  to  ac 
complish  anything  that  could  be  done  with  a 
small  command"  (ii.  214-15). 

This  certainly  gives  a  very  clear  analysis  of 
a  certain  type  of  character;  and  whether  the 
observer  was  correct  or  incorrect  in  his  diag 
nosis,  he  was  bound  to  act  upon  it.  It  further 
appears  that  Warren  was  again  and  again  a 
source  of  solicitude  to  Grant.  In  some  cases 
he  did  admirably,  as  at  Cold  Harbor.  "The 
enemy  charged  Warren  three  separate  times 
with  vigor,  but  were  repulsed  each  time  with 
loss.  There  was  no  officer  more  capable,  nor 


320  CONTEMPORARIES 

one  more  prompt  in  acting,  than  Warren,  when 
the  enemy  forced  him  into  it "  (ii.  266).  Again, 
at  the  siege  of  Petersburg,  Warren  obeyed 
orders  perfectly,  when  Burnside  paid  no  atten 
tion  to  him  (ii.  313).  Nevertheless  Grant  was 
"  very  much  afraid,"  —  taking  all  things  into 
consideration,  —  "  that  at  the  last  moment  he 
would  fail  Sheridan."  He  accordingly  sent  a 
staff  officer  to  Sheridan  to  say  that,  although 
he  personally  liked  Warren,  it  would  not  do  to 
let  personal  feeling  stand  in  the  way  of  success, 
and  "if  his  removal  was  necessary  to  success" 
Sheridan  must  not  hesitate.  On  this  authority 
the  removal  was  made ;  and  Grant  only  blames 
himself  for  not  having  assigned  Warren,  long 
before,  to  some  other  field  of  duty  (ii.  445). 

All  this  throws  light  not  merely  upon  Grant's 
sustaining  Sheridan  in  the  removal  of  Warren, 
but  on  his  uniform  refusal  afterwards  to  order 
any  Court  of  Inquiry.  This  was  the  one  thing 
for  which  Warren  and  his  friends  longed ;  and 
it  was  always  assumed  by  them  that  it  was  re 
fused  merely  in  order  to  shield  Sheridan.  Yet 
it  was  the  one  thing  which  would  have  been, 
from  Grant's  point  of  view,  utterly  useless. 
When  an  officer  is  removed  for  an  actual  moral 
fault,  as  cowardice,  drunkenness,  or  disobedi 
ence  of  orders,  a  formal  investigation  may  settle 
the  matter ;  for  it  is  then  a  question  of  definite 


GRANT  321 

charges.  But  where  a  man  of  the  highest  char 
acter  turns  out  to  be,  from  mere  peculiarities 
of  temperament,  unsuited  to  a  certain  post,  his 
displacement  may  be  just  as  necessary  ;  nor 
can  war  be  carried  on  in  any  other  way.  The 
stake  is  too  tremendous,  the  interests  of  the 
nation  are  too  momentous  for  the  matter  to  rest 
on  any  other  basis.  Nor  is  it  essential  that  the 
superior  officer  should  be  assumed  as  infallible ; 
under  these  circumstances  he  must  do  the  best 
he  can.  Had  there  been  a  Court  of  Inquiry, 
nothing  would  have  been  established  except  that 
Grant  and  Sheridan  honestly  believed  that  War 
ren  was  not  the  man  for  the  place,  and  that  they 
therefore  set  him  aside,  as  they  might  have 
done,  under  like  circumstances,  with  any  other 
officer  in  himself  estimable,  —  as,  for  instance, 
Burnside.  Grant  may  have  sincerely  thought 
that  to  say  this  before  a  Court  of  Inquiry  would 
really  hurt  Warren  more  than  Sheridan,  and 
that  it  was  better  for  the  sufferer  himself  to  let 
the  matter  rest  where  it  lay.  This  was  prob 
ably  mistaken  kindness,  if  kindness  it  was.  A 
man  smarting  under  a  real  or  supposed  injus 
tice  always  prefers  an  investigation,  even  if  the 
result  of  that  tribunal  is  sure  to  be  against  him. 
Nor  is  it  sure  that  it  would  have  been  techni 
cally  against  Warren.  The  consideration  s  which 
influenced  Grant  and  Sheridan  were  to  some 


322  CONTEMPORARIES 

extent  intangible,  and  General  Humphreys  has 
shown  that  on  some  points  they  were  mistaken, 
and  Warren  had  done  rightly.  But  the  real 
question  is  whether  Grant  was  also  mistaken 
in  his  final  analysis  of  Warren's  character ;  and 
it  is  upon  this,  after  all,  that  the  whole  thing 
turned. 

This  particular  instance  has  been  thus  empha 
sized  because  it  is,  more  than  any  other,  a  test 
of  Grant's  habit  of  justice  to  his  subordinates  ; 
a  quality  in  which,  we  are  bound  to  say,  he  sur 
passes  almost  all  writers  of  military  autobio 
graphies.  So  far  as  justice  to  himself  is  con 
cerned,  he  could  not  have  well  helped  doing  it, 
had  he  tried,  for  any  man  shows  himself  as  he 
is,  either  willingly  or  unwillingly,  when  he  tells 
his  own  story.  Nor  is  there  any  evidence  that 
he  sought  to  help  it. 

The  latter  part  of  his  book  bears  literary 
marks  of  the  tremendous  strain  under  which  it 
was  written,  but  it  bears  no  moral  marks  of  it ; 
and  he  keeps  clear,  from  beginning  to  end,  of 
all  that  ill-concealed  enthusiasm  about  himself 
which  is  the  common  bane  of  autobiographies. 
He  is  perfectly  content  to  stand  for  what  he 
was,  —  a  combination  of  plain  and  almost  com 
monplace  qualities,  developed  to  a  very  high 
power,  and  becoming  at  length  the  equivalent 
of  what  we  call  military  genius.  This,  at  least, 


GRANT  323 

is  the  inference  to  be  drawn  from  his  book. 
Whether  he  was  or  was  not,  in  the  way  of  dis 
tinctive  genius,  a  greater  man  than  he  thought 
himself  must  be  left  for  the  military  historians 
of  a  future  generation  to  determine.  In  any 
case  the  spectacle  of  an  eminent  commander 
who  habitually  underrates  himself  is  rare  enough 
to  be  very  pleasing. 

This  process  of  self-development  is  never,  of 
course,  directly  stated,  or  even  intimated,  by 
Grant  himself.  Had  it  been  otherwise  the  qual 
ity  of  unconsciousness  would  have  been  wanting. 
But  the  adaptation  of  supreme  good  sense  to 
the  conditions  and  exigencies  of  army  life  may 
constantly  be  traced  here,  not  merely  between 
the  lines,  but  in  maxim  after  maxim,  each  an 
obiter  dictum,  given  with  a  homely  simplicity 
that  half  disguises  its  real  wisdom.  What  Lin 
coln  would  have  put  into  an  anecdote  or  local 
proverb,  —  as  when,  for  instance,  he  expressed 
his  unwillingness  to  swap  horses  while  cross 
ing  a  stream  or  to  cross  Fox  River  before  he 
reached  it,  —  Grant  condenses  into  some  plain 
statement :  "  Accident  often  decides  the  fate 
of  battle"  (ii.  212).  "It  would  be  bad  to  be 
defeated  in  two  battles  fought  on  the  same  day ; 
but  it  would  not  be  bad  to  win  them  "  (ii.  20). 
"  It  is  men  who  wait  to  be  selected,  and  not 
those  who  seek,  from  whom  we  may  always 


324  CONTEMPORARIES 

expect  the  most  efficient  service  "  (ii.  1 1 7).  "  The 
fact  is,  troops  who  have  fought  a  few  battles 
and  won,  and  followed  up  their  victories,  im 
prove  upon  what  they  were  before  to  an  extent 
that  can  hardly  be  reckoned  by  percentage" 
(ii.  109).  "  No  man  is  so  brave  that  he  may 
not  meet  such  defeats  and  disasters  as  to  dis 
courage  him  and  dampen  his  ardor  for  any  cause, 
no  matter  how  just  he  deems  it "  (ii.  419).  "  It 
had  been  my  intention  before  this  to  remain  at 
the  West,  even  if  I  was  made  lieutenant-gen 
eral  ;  but  when  I  got  to  Washington,  and  saw 
the  situation,  it  was  plain  that  here  was  the 
point  for  the  commanding-general  to  be.  No 
one  else  could  probably  resist  the  pressure  that 
would  be  brought  to  bear  upon  him  to  desist 
from  his  own  plans  and  pursue  others  "  (ii.  116). 
In  each  passage  we  see  clearly  the  working 
of  Grant's  mind.  When  once  his  convictions 
had  taken  shape  in  one  of  these  simple  formulas, 
it  was  no  more  necessary  for  him  to  reconsider 
it  than  for  a  mathematician  to  go  behind  a  pre 
ceding  proposition.  This  clear  and  pellucid 
mental  habit,  joined  with  much  reticence  and  a 
good  deal  of  obstinacy,  made  a  very  powerful 
combination ;  kept  him  from  being  entangled 
by  his  own  plans  or  confused  by  those  of  others  ; 
enabled  him  to  form  a  policy,  to  hold  to  it,  to 
overcome  obstacles,  to  escape  depression  in 


GRANT  325 

defeat  or  undue  excitement  in  victory.  With 
all  this  —  and  here  comes  in  the  habit  of  mind 
generated  by  a  republic  —  he  never  forgot  that 
he  was  dealing  with  his  own  fellow  countrymen, 
both  as  friends  and  foes,  and  that  he  must  never 
leave  their  wishes  and  demands,  nor  even  their 
whims  and  prejudices,  out  of  sight.  Many  of 
his  early  risks  were  based  upon  the  conviction 
that  the  friends  of  the  Union  needed  a  victory 
or  two,  and  must  have  it.  All  his  strategy, 
during  the  closing  campaign,  was  based  upon 
the  conviction  —  a  conviction  which  Wellington 
or  Von  Moltke  might  very  probably  have  missed 
—  that  the  Confederates  were  thoroughly  tired 
of  the  war,  and  were  losing  more  men  by  deser 
tion  than  they  could  possibly  gain  by  impress 
ment.  Even  in  the  terms  at  last  given  to  Lee, 
the  same  quality  of  what  we  may  call  glorified 
common-sense  came  in ;  and  there  is  no  doubt 
that  the  whole  process  of  reconstruction  was 
facilitated  when  Grant  decided  that  the  van 
quished  Confederate  soldiers  had  better  keep 
their  horses  to  help  them  in  getting  in  their 
crops.  All  these  considerations  were  precisely 
those  we  should  expect  a  republican  general  to 
apply.  It  would  be  natural  for  him  to  recognize 
that  the  war  in  which  he  was  engaged  was  not 
a  mere  competitive  test  of  military  machines, 
human  or  otherwise,  but  that  it  must  be  han- 


326  CONTEMPORARIES 

died  with  constant  reference  to  the  instincts  and 
habits  that  lay  behind  it.  The  absence  of  this 
ready  comprehension  helped  to  explain  the  curi 
ous  failure,  in  our  army,  of  many  foreign  officers 
who  knew  only  the  machine.  The  fact  that 
Grant  and  Lincoln,  however  they  might  differ 
in  other  respects,  had  this  mental  habit  in  com 
mon  was  that  which  enabled  them  to  work 
together  so  well.  A  striking  instance  of  this 
was  their  common  relation  to  the  slavery  ques 
tion,  which  both  had  approached  reluctantly, 
but  which  both  accepted  at  last  as  the  pivotal 
matter  of  the  whole  conflict.  Both  saw  that  it 
could  be  met  in  but  one  way,  and  both  divined 
that  the  course  of  events  was  steadily  aboli- 
tionizing  all  Union  men.  In  general,  Lincoln 
with  sympathetic  humor  and  Grant  with  strong 
sense  kept  always  in  mind  the  difference  be 
tween  a  people's  war  and  a  mere  contest  of 
soldiers. 

In  other  words,  they  were  both  representa 
tive  Americans.  So  much  stronger  is  the  repub 
lican  instinct  among  us  than  any  professional 
feeling  which  even  West  Point  can  create  that 
Grant,  though  trained  to  the  pursuit  of  arms, 
never  looked  at  things  for  a  moment  merely 
from  the  soldier's  point  of  view.  This  was  the 
key  to  his  military  successes,  —  the  time,  the 
place,  the  combatants  being  what  they  were,  — 


GRANT  327 

and  this  was  the  key  to  the  readiness  with 
which,  at  last,  both  Grant  and  the  soldiers 
under  him  laid  down  their  arms.  Here  at  last, 
Europe  thought,  was  the  crisis  of  danger  ;  here 
was  the  "man  on  horseback,"  so  often  pro 
phesied  as  the  final  instrument  of  Providence, 
surely  destined  to  bring  this  turbulent  republic 
back  among  the  mass  of  nations  that  obey  with 
ease.  The  moment  of  fancied  peril  came  ;  and 
it  turned  out  that  old  Israel  Putnam,  galloping 
in  his  shirt-sleeves  to  the  battle  of  Bunker 
Hill,  was  not  more  harmless  to  the  liberties 
of  America  than  this  later  man-on-horseback, 
Grant. 

The  claims  of  Grant  to  permanent  fame  will 
lie  first  in  the  fact  that  he  commanded  the 
largest  civilized  armies  the  world  ever  saw; 
secondly,  that  with  these  armies  he  saved  the 
integrity  of  the  American  nation  ;  thirdly,  that 
he  did  all  this  by  measures  of  his  own  initiating, 
rarely  calling  a  council  of  war  and  commonly 
differing  from  it  when  called  ;  fourthly,  that  he 
did  all  this  for  duty,  not  glory,  and  in  the  spirit 
of  a  citizen,  not  the  military  spirit,  persisting  to 
the  last  that  he  was,  as  he  told  Bismarck,  more 
of  a  farmer  than  a  soldier ;  then  again,  that 
when  tested  by  the  severest  personal  griefs  and 
losses  in  the  decline  of  life,  he  showed  the  same 
strong  qualities  still ;  and  finally,  that  in  writ- 


328  CONTEMPORARIES 

ing  his  own  memoirs  he  was  simple  as  regards 
himself,  candid  towards  opponents,  and  thus 
bequeathed  to  the  world  a  book  better  worth 
reading  than  any  military  autobiography  since 
Caesar's  Commentaries. 


THE   ECCENTRICITIES   OF   RE 
FORMERS 

"  OH,  why,"  said  an  exhausted  American  wife 
to  her  husband,  a  moderate  reformer,  "  why  do 
the  insane  so  cling  to  you  ? "  This  tendency  of 
every  reform  to  surround  itself  with  a  fringe  of 
the  unreasonable  and  half-cracked  is  really  to 
its  credit,  and  furnishes  one  of  its  best  disci 
plines.  Those  who  are  obliged  by  conscience  to 
disregard  the  peace  and  proprieties  of  the  social 
world,  in  the  paths  of  reform,  learn  by  experi 
ence  what  a  trial  they  are  to  their  friends  by 
observing  what  tortures  they  themselves  suffer 
from  those  who  go  a  few  steps  farther.  They 
learn  self-control  by  exercising  moderation  to 
ward  those  who  have  lost  that  quality.  Thomas 
Hughes,  in  his  letters  from  America,  describing 
some  one  whom  he  likes,  adds,  "  He  is  doubt 
less,  however,  a  cracked  fellow,  in  the  best 
sense,"  —  showing  that,  without  a  little  crack 
somewhere,  a  man  could  hardly  do  his  duty  to 
the  times.  Thus  it  is  that  the  insane  cling  to 
those  who,  though  really  sane,  are  content  to  be 
called  crazy,  —  "fanatic  named  and  fool,"  as 


330  CONTEMPORARIES 

Lowell  wrote  of  Phillips  in  a  sonnet.  There  is 
nothing  more  curious  in  the  rich  and  copious 
memoirs  of  Garrison  than  his  early  cordiality 
of  relations  with  John  Humphrey  Noyes,  the 
man  who  finally  became  the  potent  head  of  the 
curious  free-love  community  at  Oneida;  and 
Garrison  was,  as  a  result,  publicly  charged  with 
holding  doctrines  which  were  to  him  peculiarly 
offensive.  Dryden  wrote  :  — 

"  Great  wits  are  sure  to  madness  near  allied, 
And  thin  partitions  do  their  bounds  divide." 

What  he  wrote  is  not  more  true  of  the  coffee 
house  wits  whom  he  had  in  mind  than  of  the 
incomparably  greater  wits  who  originate  and 
carry  on  reforms. 

The  early  anti-slavery  meetings  in  particular 
were  severely  tested  in  respect  to  patience  by 
those  who  might  almost  be  called  professional 
lunatics,  as  for  instance  Father  Lamson,  Abby 
Folsom  (Emerson's  "flea  of  conventions"),  and 
G.  W.  F.  Mellen.  Lamson's  white  habiliments 
and  white  beard  seemed  almost  like  a  stage 
make-up  for  the  situation  ;  and  Abby  Folsom's 
"interminable  scroll"  (Emerson  again),  with 
her  shrill  climax  of  all  remarks,  "  It's  the  capi 
talists  ! "  seemed  like  the  rehearsal  of  a  play. 
Yet  it  is  not  quite  fair  to  assume  that  the  pa 
tience  of  the  abolitionists  was  invariable.  There 
were  times  when  it  gave  way :  and  I  have  seen 


ECCENTRICITIES    OF   REFORMERS     331 

Abby  Folsom  led  from  the  hall,  courteously  but 
decisively,  by  Wendell  Phillips  on  the  one  side 
and  a  man  yet  living  on  the  other,  —  she  still 
denouncing  the  capitalists  as  she  reluctantly 
came  towards  the  door.  To  the  occasional 
policeman  present,  for  whom  the  abolitionists 
themselves  seemed  as  much  lunatics  as  their 
allies,  the  petty  discrimination  of  putting  out 
only  the  craziest  must  have  appeared  an  ab 
surdity  ;  Wendell  Phillips  at  that  very  meeting 
had  to  explain  the  real  distinction,  —  namely, 
that  he  and  his  friends  were  not  the  object  of 
persecution  because  they  were  crazy,  but  be 
cause  they  were  known  not  to  be. 

Another  striking  figure  on  the  platform,  who 
always  attracted  the  disapproval  of  the  profane, 
was  Charles  Burleigh,  who  wore  not  merely  long 
curls  on  his  shoulders,  but  also  a  long  and  rather 
ill-trimmed  beard,  —  in  a  beardless  period,  —  and 
had  distinctly  that  Christ-like  look  which  is  often 
to  be  found  in  large  gatherings  of  reformers. 
Lowell,  who  was  one  of  the  early  beard  -  con 
verts,  used  to  be  amused  in  going  about  the 
streets  with  Burleigh,  a  much  taller  man,  to  find 
himself  pointed  out  with  a  sort  of  subsidiary 
emphasis,  as  if  he  were  a  young  neophyte  ac 
companying  his  father  confessor.  Burleigh  was 
undoubtedly  one  of  the  ablest  men  in  the  anti- 
slavery  conventions.  Lowell,  in  one  of  his 


332  CONTEMPORARIES 

letters,  describes  him  as  "looking  like  one  of 
the  old  apostles  who  had  slept  in  the  same  room 
with  a  Quaker  who  had  gone  off  in  the  morn 
ing  with  his  companion's  appropriate  costume, 
leaving  him  to  accommodate  himself  as  best 
he  might  to  the  straight  collar  and  the  single 
breast  of  the  fugitive."  l  He  belonged  to  a 
gifted  family,  two  of  his  brothers  being  poets, 
and  he  himself  was  a  man  of  singular  power  in 
speech,  with  a  rich  and  mellow  voice,  a  benig 
nant  manner  and  an  extremely  clear  and  logical 
mind ;  had  he  also  possessed  humor,  he  would 
have  been  one  of  the  most  effective  of  orators. 
His  eloquence  had  every  essential  except  this, 
as  his  personal  appearance  had  every  quality  of 
distinction  but  neatness. 

Another  man  of  peculiar  bearing  was  Henry 
C.  Wright,  whose  whim  was  never  to  address 
the  presiding  officer  as  "Mr.  Chairman,"  but 
only  as  "  Chairman,"  and  whose  erect  figure 
and  commanding  voice,  with  the  frequent  re 
currence  of  an  occasional  and  imperious  "  Now, 
Chairman ! "  gave  him  a  weight  of  manner 
which  his  matter  did  not  always  confirm.  He 
had  been  in  early  life  a  Congregational  minister, 
and  had  lost  his  parish,  it  was  said,  for  the  un- 
clerical  act  (in  those  days)  of  swimming  across 
the  Connecticut  River.  His  papers  and  his  jour- 

1  Letters  of  James  Russell  Lowell,  i.  no. 


ECCENTRICITIES   OF   REFORMERS     333 

nals,  which  were  profuse,  are  now  in  the  Har 
vard  College  Library,  and  will  one  day,  no 
doubt,  furnish  ample  and  quaint  materials  for 
the  historian  of  the  "  Come-outers  "  of  that  day. 
Another  noticeable  person  on  the  platform  was 
Nathaniel  Peabody  Rogers,  the  New  Hamp 
shire  editor,  a  man  of  noble  and  beautiful  charac 
ter,  whose  journalism  had  a  spice  and  zest  which 
would  now  command  a  market  on  merely  pro 
fessional  grounds ;  but  who  was  a  Non-resistant 
of  non-resistants,  and  would,  if  he  could  have 
had  his  way,  have  conducted  the  meetings  with 
out  president,  secretary,  or  any  restrictions  on 
debate.  He  out-Garrisoned  Garrison  on  this 
and  other  points,  and  they  at  last  parted  com 
pany,  to  their  mutual  regret.  He  had  one  of 
those  faces  of  utter  benignity  which  always  sur 
prised  Southern  visitors  to  the  anti-slavery  con 
ventions,  they  usually  expecting  to  find  upon 
the  platform  a  set  of  scowling  stage  villains. 

Another  picturesque  and  even  eccentric  fea 
ture  upon  the  anti-slavery  platform  was  the 
group  of  the  Hutchinson  family,  raven-haired 
and  keen-eyed  as  a  group  of  Bohemians,  tall 
and  stalwart  youths  surrounding  their  rosebud 
of  a  sister,  Abby.  They,  too,  had  a  melodra 
matic  look,  with  their  wide  collars  and  long 
locks ;  they  put  immense  fire  and  fury  into 
"  The  Car  Emancipation  "  and  their  other  anti- 


334  CONTEMPORARIES 

slavery  songs.  As  years  went  on,  they  broke 
up  into  detached  groups,  extending  into  the 
second  generation.  The  story  of  these  experi 
ences  has  been  told  entertainingly  in  a  book  by 
one  of  the  family.  Four  of  the  brothers  used 
to  give  village  concerts,  in  which  they  adapted 
themselves  to  each  place  they  visited,  using  local 
"gags  "  to  an  extent  which  brought  out  screams 
of  laughter.  I  was  present  on  one  occasion, 
in  a  country  town,  when  they  had  refused  an 
encore,  but  when  it  finally  had  to  be  conceded 
on  the  special  appeal  of  a  venerable  citizen  ;  and 
they  selected  for  performance  one  of  their  most 
absurd  songs  :  — 

"  O  potatoes  they  grow  small 

Over  there  ! 

O  potatoes  they  grow  small, 
'Cos  they  plants  'em  in  the  fall, 
And  they  eats  'em,  tops  and  all, 

Over  there." 

A  muffled  chuckle  began  in  all  parts  of  the  audi 
ence,  and  swelled  to  a  tumult  of  applause  incom 
prehensible  to  me  till  I  afterwards  learned  that 
the  venerable  gentleman  in  question  was  known 
as  "  Small  Potatoes,"  from  an  unlucky  gift  of 
a  basket  of  such  inadequate  vegetables  to  some 
donation  fund. 

Whether  the  hit  was  wholly  accidental  on 
the  part  of  the  Hutchinsons  I  never  knew, 
and  the  impression  on  the  audience  was  soon 


ECCENTRICITIES    OF   REFORMERS     335 

changed  when  one  of  the  brothers,  who  had  be 
fore  given  evidences  of  insanity,  came  forward 
to  make  a  speech  to  the  audience,  lecturing 
them  especially  on  the  undue  love  of  money. 
He  spoke  to  them  courageously  and  tenderly, 
like  a  troubled  father,  though  he  still  looked 
young ;  and  at  last  said,  with  infinite  pity,  "  If 
you  wish  for  money,  you  can  have  it  from  me," 
and  began  taking  silver  coins  from  his  pockets 
and  tossing  them  among  the  audience,  where 
they  were  at  first  eagerly  picked  up  by  boys,  and 
then  left  untouched,  while  the  spectators  seemed 
awed  and  spell-bound.  I  never  shall  forget  the 
anxious  and  patient  look  with  which  the  bro 
thers  watched  him  with  their  large  dark  eyes, 
not,  however,  interfering;  and  even  when  he 
had  emptied  his  pockets  and  turned  to  a  box 
containing  the  receipts  taken  at  the  door,  and 
began  to  throw  half-dollars  and  quarter-dollars 
from  that,  saying  to  them,  "  May  I  ? "  they  only 
nodded  gravely,  leaving  him  to  himself.  It  all 
recalled  descriptions  of  the  reverence  given  by 
untaught  persons  to  the  acts  of  the  insane. 
He  soon  stopped  and  the  music  was  resumed, 
the  money  being  honestly  collected  afterwards 
and  brought  back  to  his  brothers.  This  mem 
ber  of  the  household  finally  committed  suicide, 
after  a  long  period  during  which  his  disordered 
mind  evidently  played  with  the  thought  of  it, 


336  CONTEMPORARIES 

getting  all  ready  for  it  just  at  the  hour  when  he 
knew  he  should  be  interrupted,  as,  for  instance, 
by  men  coming  to  the  barn  to  feed  the  cattle ; 
but  finally  he  went  too  far.  The  career  of  the 
whole  family  was  a  curious  instance  of  the  spo 
radic  appearance  of  a  quality  akin  to  genius 
in  certain  households,  a  trait  which  is  familiar  to 
every  student  of  life  in  New  England  farming 
towns. 

Parker  Pillsbury's  "  Acts  of  the  Anti-Slavery 
Apostles"  is  a  storehouse  of  facts  as  to  the 
decidedly  extreme  attitude  taken  for  a  time  by 
himself,  Stephen  Foster,  Henry  C.  Wright,  and 
others,  of  whom  it  could  be  said,  as  Garrison 
wrote  to  his  wife  about  one  of  these,  "He  is 
remarkably  successful  in  raising  the  spirit  of 
mobocracy  wherever  he  goes.  I  could  wish," 

he   adds,  "that   brother  would   exercise 

more  judgment  and  discretion  in  the  presenta 
tion  of  his  views  ;  but  it  is  useless  to  reason 
with  him,  with  any  hope  of  altering  his  course, 
as  he  is  firmly  persuaded  that  he  is  pursuing 
the  very  best  course."  It  was  during  one  of 
these  mobs  that  Lucy  Stone,  urging  the  men 
who  had  spoken  to  retire  from  the  hall  through 
a  back  door,  was  met  by  them  with  the  question, 
"  Who  will  protect  you  ?  "  "  This  gentleman 
will  protect  me,"  said  the  sweet-voiced  woman, 
taking  the  arm  of  the  ringleader  of  the  mob  as 


ECCENTRICITIES    OF   REFORMERS     337 

he  sprang  on  the  platform.  "  Yes,  I  will,"  he 
said,  after  one  look  at  her  serene  face ;  and  he 
piloted  her  safely  out.  So  clear,  however,  was 
the  conviction  of  these  especial  leaders  as  to 
the  necessity  of  very  strong  statements  that 
one  excellent  Quaker  woman  offered  this  reso 
lution  at  the  tenth  anniversary  meeting  of  the 
Massachusetts  Anti-Slavery  Society,  January 
28,  1842:  "Resolved,  That  the  sectarian  or 
ganizations  called  churches  are  combinations  of 
thieves,  robbers,  adulterers,  pirates,  and  mur 
derers,  and  as  such  form  the  bulwarks  of  Amer 
ican  slavery."  What  she  meant  was  simply 
what  James  G.  Birney  had  meant  in  his  tract? 
"The  American  Churches  the  Bulwarks  of 
American  Slavery ; "  but  these  specifications 
which  she  made,  though  logically  consistent, 
raised  natural  antagonism  in  thousands  of  hon 
est  minds. 

It  must  be  remembered,  on  the  other  hand, 
that  this  was  a  period,  even  in  New  England,  of 
negro  pews,  negro  cars,  and  even  negro  stages. 
I  can  myself  recall  an  instance,  about  1840, 
when  a  colored  woman  was  ejected  from  a  stage 
on  what  is  now  Massachusetts  Avenue,  near  the 
Cambridge  Common  ;  and  negro  cars  were  often 
provided,  even  on  Massachusetts  railways,  from 
which  the  white  companions  of  such  negroes 
were  forcibly  put  out,  as  were  the  colored  peo- 


338  CONTEMPORARIES 

pie  from  white  men's  cars,  even  if  they  had 
first-class  tickets.  With  the  curious  inconsist 
ency  of  those  times,  an  exception  was  made 
if  the  colored  people  were  servants  of  whites. 
These  outrages  were  particularly  noticeable 
on  the  Eastern  Railroad,  of  which  a  Quaker 
was  the  superintendent.  In  one  number  of 
"  The  Liberator "  (xii.  56)  there  is  a  travelers' 
directory  of  the  various  railroads,  indicating 
whether  they  do  or  do  not  have  negro  cars.1 
Police  justices  refused  to  punish  assaults  by 
railroad  employees  even  on  white  passengers 
who  had  resisted  or  condemned  these  outrages. 
Under  these  circumstances,  much  was  to  be 
pardoned  to  the  spirit  of  liberty. 

The  woman  suffrage  movement,  involving  as 
it  did  a  more  immediate  and  personal  test  of 
daily  habits  than  the  anti-slavery  reform,  carried 
with  it,  naturally,  its  own  fringe  of  oddities.  The 
mere  fact  that  it  coincided  with  the  period  of 
the  Bloomer  costume  would  have  secured  this ; 
for,  while  it  required  some  mental  ability  to 
lengthen  one's  range  of  thoughts,  it  needed 
none  at  all  to  shorten  one's  skirts.  The  dress, 
so  far  from  being  indelicate,  was  scrupulously 
and  almost  prudishly  modest,  and  those  who 
wore  it  would  have  been  dismayed  and  horrified 

1  See  Life  of  Garrison,  iii.  28 ;  Liberator,  Vols.  xi.,  xii.^ 
passim. 


ECCENTRICITIES    OF   REFORMERS     339 

by  the  modern  bathing-dress ;  but  it  brought, 
as  I  can  personally  testify,  more  discomfort 
to  the  speakers  of  the  other  sex  than  any  trials 
of  a  platform,  since  the  ladies  who  wore  it  had 
often  to  be  escorted  home  through  the  irrev 
erent  population  of  a  city.  But,  apart  from 
this,  the  mere  radicalism  of  the  agitation  nat 
urally  appealed  to  a  certain  number  of  the  un 
balanced,  and  the  movement  had  to  bear  the 
burden. 

This  came  over  me  vividly  for  the  first  time 
when  attending  a  Woman's  Rights  meeting  — 
this  being  the  early  designation  of  the  enter 
prise —  in  Philadelphia.  The  gathering  was 
large,  and  the  gallery  audience  was  made  up, 
in  a  considerable  degree,  of  young  medical 
students,  many  of  these  being  Southerners  and 
ripe  for  fun.  Just  after  the  meeting  had  been 
called  to  order,  a  man  of  quiet  appearance  came 
to  me  and  said,  "  Is  Miss  Ora  Noon  present  ?  " 
Struck  by  the  oddity  of  the  name,  —  which  I 
have  slightly  modified  in  telling  this  story,  —  I 
asked  him  why  he  wished  to  know,  and  he  said 
that  she  was  a  medical  student,  and  some  friends 
from  out  of  town  had  arrived  and  wished  to  see 
her.  "Will  you  not  call  for  her?"  he  said; 
and  I,  becoming  still  more  suspicious,  referred 
the  matter  to  James  Mott,  who  was  just  pass 
ing.  He  recognized  the  name  at  once,  to  my 


340  CONTEMPORARIES 

great  relief,  called  for  her  aloud  with  his  usual 
grave  dignity,  and  a  young  girl  of  rather  odd 
appearance  got  up,  made  her  way  to  the  door, 
and  went  out  with  her  friends.  After  a  little 
tittering,  the  audience  composed  itself  and  we 
heard  no  more  of  the  incident.  But  that  night, 
after  returning  to  the  hospitable  home  of  the 
Motts,  I  was  told  the  whole  story  of  Ora  Noon. 
She  was,  it  appeared,  the  daughter  of  a 
Southern  slaveholder,  and  was  to  inherit  negroes 
on  coming  of  age.  She  had  formed  a  great  de 
sire  to  study  medicine,  to  which  her  father  was 
vehemently  opposed.  After  several  unsuccess 
ful  efforts,  she  attacked  him  again  on  her  twen 
tieth  birthday  and  requested,  as  a  birthday  gift, 
his  assent  to  her  wish.  He  still  refusing,  she 
coolly  said  :  "  Very  well ;  in  another  year  I  shall 
be  of  age,  and  shall  come  into  possession  of  my 
own  property.  I  shall  then  sell  my  slaves,  and 
this  will  give  the  means  for  my  course  of  medical 
study."  The  father  laughed  at  so  absurd  a  pro 
posal  ;  the  subject  rested  for  a  year,  and  on  the 
eve  of  her  twenty-first  birthday  she  announced 
the  purpose  again.  The  father  at  last  surren 
dered,  made  her  promise  not  to  sell  her  slaves, 
and  counted  out  to  her  the  money  for  her  first 
year  at  Philadelphia.  This  being  in  her  hands 
she  quietly  said  :  "  To-morrow  I  shall  emanci 
pate  my  slaves,  instead  of  selling  them ; "  and 


ECCENTRICITIES    OF   REFORMERS     341 

she  did  it.  She  went  to  Philadelphia,  knowing 
nobody,  secured  a  boarding-place,  bought  a  pair 
of  pistols,  a  season  ticket  to  the  pistol-gallery, 
and  a  similar  ticket  to  a  leading  theatre ;  and 
thus  began  her  professional  preparations.  She 
proved  a  most  successful  student,  and  led,  in 
spite  of  the  above  little  eccentricities,  an  irre 
proachable  life  ;  her  success  at  the  pistol-gallery 
perhaps  helping  to  protect  from  any  disrespect 
inspired  by  her  habitual  presence  at  the  theatre. 
It  is  all  a  curious  illustration  of  the  erratic  ten 
dency  sometimes  visible,  just  at  first,  on  each 
step  in  the  emancipation  of  any  class.  Very 
probably  the  later  demeanor  of  Miss  Ora  Noon 
was  one  of  scrupulous  decorum  ;  and  she  may 
never  have  needed  to  employ  her  pistols  against 
anything  more  formidable  than  clay  pigeons. 

Where  eccentricity  lasts  into  middle  life,  it  is 
apt  to  be  permanent.  I  knew  well  a  reformer 
who,  although  a  working  farmer,  had  regulated 
his  life  absolutely  in  his  own  way,  and  was  as  in 
dependent  of  all  others  as  if  he  lived  on  a  lonely 
island.  He  dressed  uniformly  in  light  drab 
clothes,  neatly  cut  and  carefully  brushed,  and 
wore  a  deep  Byronic  collar  around  a  very  bare 
neck.  He  was  scrupulously  and  marvelously 
clean,  and  had  that  delicacy  of  skin  which  marks 
the  vegetarian.  His  wife  was  a  sensible  and 
capable  woman,  and  their  three  little  boys,  of 


342  CONTEMPORARIES 

whom  the  eldest  developed  a  marked  musical 
talent,  were  admirably  cared  for.  One  of  these 
was  named  Freewaldo  Channing,  the  latter 
name  being  given  in  honor  of  the  celebrated 
divine,  while  the  first  name  was  taken,  the  father 
told  me  from  a  German  word  which  he  had 
heard  (freiwalder),  meaning  free-woodsman, — 
which  was  what  he  wished  his  child  to  be.  As 
the  father  once  said  to  me,  "  Neither  me  nor 
my  boys  wants  to  keep  always  to  the  same  dull 
roundelay  o'  choppin'  wood  and  doin'  chores." 
Percy  Taylor,  as  I  will  call  the  father,  was  the 
nearest  approach  I  have  ever  known  to  the  pro 
verbial  man-of-one-book  (homo  unius  librt),  who 
is  justly  feared  by  more  promiscuous  readers. 
Percy  Taylor's  one  book  was  Lamartine's  "  His 
tory  of  the  Girondists,"  then  lately  published 
and  called  by  him  "  La  Martin's  History  of  the 
Guy-rondists."  He  rarely  engaged  in  any  long 
talk  without  drawing  some  moral  from  that 
book,  —  his  favorite  heroes  being  Robespierre 
and  Vergniaud,  whom  he  called  "  Robyspierry  " 
and  "  Virginnyord."  His  own  conversation  was 
filled  with  aphorisms,  sometimes  sonorous  and 
resounding,  as  when  he  said  to  me  :  "  As  I  look 
at  it,  Humanity,  a-ploddin'  over  this  planet, 
meets  with  considerable  many  left  -  handed 
things  :  and  the  best  way  I  know  of  is  to  sum 
mons  up  courage  and  put  right  through  'em." 


ECCENTRICITIES   OF   REFORMERS     343 

Here  the  moral  is  superb,  and  I  do  not  see  why 
the  simple  figure  of  "  Humanity  a-ploddin'  over 
this  planet "  is  not  as  fine  as  the  long  tradition 
of  the  Wandering  Jew. 

Percy  Taylor  belonged  to  a  family  which  has 
been,  in  various  branches,  forcible  and  eccentric. 
His  half-brother  came  tolerably  near  being  him 
self  the  Wandering  Jew,  having  traveled  widely 
in  Europe  and  the  East,  everywhere  stopping 
at  short  intervals  in  the  highway,  baring  his 
head  and  offering  oral  prayer.  His  sonorous 
voice  penetrated  far  at  such  times,  and  the 
groups  collecting  round  him  were  moved  to  si 
lence,  not  derision.  Once,  when  staying  over 
night  in  the  same  house  with  him,  and  occupy 
ing  an  adjoining  room,  I  heard  him  presently  up 
lifting  his  supplications  in  elaborately  piled  sen 
tences,  and  soon  coming  round  to  "  the  stranger 
within  the  gates,"  meaning  me.  I  do  not  know 
that  he  confessed  my  sins,  but  I  know  that  he 
traced  out  unflinchingly  my  supposed  duties, 
present  and  future  ;  and  when  I  slept  and  waked 
again,  he  was  still  at  work  on  my  spiritual 
horoscope,  —  nor  have  I  ever  felt  so  encom 
passed,  and,  as  it  were,  shielded  by  a  beneficent 
interference,  though  one  rather  drowsily  recog 
nized.  It  would  have  seemed  quite  impossible 
to  breakfast  in  the  ordinary  manner  with  such 
a  self-appointed  guardian  angel,  and  I  think  he 


344  CONTEMPORARIES 

must  have  been  up  and  away  before  I  descended. 
I  more  than  once  saw  him  afterwards,  standing 
like  a  statue  at  street  corners  and  making  invo 
cation  for  a  whole  city ;  but  I  felt  that  I  had 
been  the  subject  of  his  concentrated  care,  and 
passed  on.  There  may  have  been  some  verita 
ble  mystic  element  in  the  whole  family,  for  I 
remember  that  Percy  had  a  wondrous  tale  of 
having  been  summoned  home  ten  miles  in  a 
storm  by  a  premonition  that  danger  impended 
over  his  wife,  and  of  having  arrived  just  in  time 
to  defend  her  from  a  tramp  at  the  back  door. 

Those  who,  half  a  century  ago,  attended  any 
service  in  the  meeting-house  of  the  old  First 
Parish  at  Newburyport  —  a  fine  type  of  an  ear 
lier  church  architecture  in  its  graceful  steeple, 
its  lofty  pulpit,  and  its  sounding-board  —  could 
hardly  fail  to  notice,  in  the  front  corner  pew 
of  the  great  gallery,  a  man  of  tall  and  rather 
striking  appearance,  with  hawk  nose  and  viva 
cious  look,  who  presided  over  a  pew  full  of 
whispering  boys,  and  was  sedulous  in  calling 
their  attention  to  the  hymns,  and  in  writing  out 
for  each  the  text  of  the  sermon.  The  task  was 
gratuitous  on  his  part,  and  the  boys  were  led  to 
this  Sunday  fidelity  rather  as  a  species  of  rever 
ential  lark,  one  might  say,  than  from  any  un 
alloyed  devotion.  He  might  have  passed  for 
one  of  those  tithing-men  so  essential  to  the 


ECCENTRICITIES    OF   REFORMERS     345 

order  of  early  Puritan  worship,  and  still  to  be 
seen  in  the  Protestant  Cathedral  of  Basle  in 
Switzerland.  Yet  his  life  had  been  wholly  sec 
ular,  and  the  title  which  preceded  his  name  — 
Doctor  Hackett  —  was  rumored  to  have  been 
won  by  service  as  hospital  steward.  He  had 
no  visible  means  of  support,  and  few  obvious 
expenses ;  his  profession  was  mainly  that  of 
walking,  with  the  aid  of  a  staff  and  two  exceed 
ingly  long  legs,  about  all  the  neighboring  coun 
try,  he  seldom  failing  to  be  present  at  a  reform 
meeting,  an  ordination,  or  a  funeral.  In  his 
shorter  walks  he  made  it  his  especial  mission  to 
clear  away  large  stones  from  the  road,  bend 
ing  his  tall  form  to  grasp  them,  and  flinging 
them  with  vigor  on  one  side.  Perhaps  the  oc 
casional  reference  among  Scripture  texts  to 
"  stones  of  offending "  may  have  led  him  to 
this  form  of  self-consecration,  but  I  have  often 
wished  in  rural  neighborhoods  that  there  were 
more  disciples  of  his  faith. 

His  dwelling-place  was  as  weird  in  the  ap 
proach  as  that  of  some  enchanter  in  Spenser's 
poetry.  He  lived  alone  on  a  wide  tract  then 
known  as  Grasshopper  Plains,  dwelling  in  a 
small  shanty  which  he  had  bought,  I  think,  from 
some  railroad  men  ;  and  its  minute  dimensions 
caused  him  no  repining,  except  that  he  could 
not  give  it  the  dignity  of  insurance  against  fire, 


346  CONTEMPORARIES 

as  it  was  valued  at  only  five  dollars,  and  no 
company  would  take  risks  below  ten.  This 
atom  of  a  house  was,  however,  less  remarkable 
than  the  approach  to  it.  He  had  removed  it 
into  the  middle  of  a  copse  of  young  birches, 
through  which  little  paths  penetrated,  con 
verging  toward  his  door.  On  all  these  paths 
he  had  made  piles  of  small  wayside  treasures 
that  had  attracted  his  eye,  —  horseshoes,  pad 
locks,  keys,  hoops,  bits  of  iron  rod  too  small 
for  junk,  and  yet  carefully  classed  and  piled. 
Within  the  house  the  collection  grew  only  more 
concentrated :  pins,  nails,  rusty  knives,  bits  of 
ribbon,  bits  of  string,  were  hung  to  the  raf 
ters,  or  arranged  on  the  floor,  leaving  scarcely 
room  for  his  microscopic  housekeeping.  As  un 
moved  by  his  possessions  as  if  it  were  a  palace, 
he  ushered  you  in,  kept  on  talking,  flung  out 
flowery  and  long-winded  words,  and  seemed  a 
Bourbon  concealed  in  a  junkshop.  On  your 
exit,  he  accompanied  you  and  escorted  you 
through  his  small  dominions,  first  pausing  to 
screw  upon  his  door  a  large  iron  plate  covering 
solidly  the  keyhole,  since  it  seemed  that  vagrant 
boys  found  a  wicked  delight  in  filling  the  latter 
with  gravel  and  small  stones  in  the  owner's  ab 
sence.  "  Such  conduct,"  he  said  in  his  Micaw- 
ber-like  way,  "  I  should  call,  sir  —  with  no  dis 
respect  to  the  colored  population  —  niggardly.  " 


ECCENTRICITIES   OF  REFORMERS     347 

While  I  wrestled  in  bewilderment  with  this  un 
expected  use  of  language,  as  if  John  the  Baptist 
had  unguardedly  slipped  into  a  pun,  he  came 
back  to  the  proposition,  —  "I  intend,  sir,  no  dis 
respect  whatever  to  the  colored  population.'* 
"  Certainly  not,  Doctor  Hackett,  "  I  replied;  "I 
should  not  suspect  you  of  such  a  thing."  The 
intercourse  between  us  was  always,  I  think,  as 
high-bred  and  decorous  in  tone  as  if  it  had  cul 
minated  in  an  interchange  of  snuff-boxes. 

In  truth,  even  to  this  day,  one  rarely  finds  a 
country  town  in  which  there  is  not  some  half- 
lunatic  or  "feeble-minded  person  "  — more  com 
monly  a  woman  —  who  is  so  near  the  verge  of 
sanity  as  rather  to  rejoice  in  the  freedom  of 
observation  and  speech  that  it  implies.  "  I  am," 
said  a  lady  of  this  description  to  me,  "  the  only 
person  in  this  place  who  can  afford  to  tell  peo 
ple  the  absolute  truth."  She  habitually  walked 
about  with  an  old-fashioned  cane,  which  had 
been  her  father's ;  and  she  came  nearer  than 
any  one  in  town  to  the  all-observant  poet  de 
scribed  in  Browning's  "  How  it  Strikes  a  Con 
temporary."  In  one  case  I  knew  such  a  woman 
who  stopped  a  pastor,  recently  a  widower,  on 
the  sidewalk,  and,  holding  up  a  warning  finger, 
cautioned  him  against  an  aspiring  virgin  of  the 
parish  :  "  Luther  Dalton !  Luther  Dalton !  be 
ware  of  Lucy  Bradley !  She  's  a  Cat ! "  I  again 


348  CONTEMPORARIES 

discreetly  modify  the  names  ;  but  the  poor 
man,  stricken  with  terror,  left  town  as  soon  as 
possible,  and  returned  in  a  few  weeks  with  a 
newly-wedded  spouse,  who  vigilantly  kept  both 
cats  and  their  persecutors  at  a  distance.  These 
sibyls,  it  is  needless  to  say,  were  usually  re 
formers  ;  they  would  have  gone  to  the  stake 
for  their  principles ;  but  they  were  rather  apt 
to  keep  a  private  auto-da-fe  at  hand,  where  the 
troublesome  Lucy  Bradleys  of  this  world  might 
be  immolated  for  their  presumption. 


THE   ROAD  TO   ENGLAND 

"  The  noblest  prospect  which  a  Scotchman  ever  sees  is  the  highroad 
that  leads  him  to  England.  —  BOSWHLL'S  Johnson  (A.  D.  1763). 

IT  has  often  been  a  question  in  my  mind 
whether  I  was  personally  helped  or  hindered  by 
the  fact  of  never  having  set  foot  on  the  shores 
of  England  until  forty-eight  years  old.  The 
very  juvenile  age  at  which  young  people  now 
go  there,  and  the  fact  that  we  generally  regard 
this  arrangement  as  a  thing  in  itself  desirable, 
are  curiously  in  contrast  with  the  time  when 
early  foreign  travel  was  comparatively  rare.  In 
my  own  case,  the  postponement  never,  on  the 
whole,  seemed  to  be  a  distinct  injury,  since  I 
cannot  but  think  that  the  strictly  American 
fibre  was  likely  to  be  knit  more  strongly,  at 
least  in  those  days,  for  persons  bred  in  their 
own  country.  The  interval  certainly  gave  time 
for  measuring  men  and  thoughts  at  home,  for 
testing  one's  self  by  different  forms  of  action, 
and  for  accumulating  knowledge  which  made 
the  new  experience  more  valuable.  Undoubt 
edly,  during  such  years  of  waiting,  the  eager- 


350  CONTEMPORARIES 

ness  of  every  American  to  see  the  home  of  his 
fathers  grew  stronger  and  stronger ;  and  he 
was  apt  to  share  the  feeling  of  Johnson's  imagi 
nary  Scotchman,  though  perhaps  from  a  higher 
motive,  that  the  noblest  prospect  he  could  see 
would  be  the  highroad  leading  to  England.  The 
circumstance  that,  in  this  instance,  his  path  was 
to  be  "o'er  the  mountain  waves,"  in  Campbell's 
phrase,  only  increased  the  attraction. 

Yet  in  truth  the  American  began  to  walk 
on  the  road  to  England  from  the  time  when 
he  first  encountered  English  literature  and 
Englishmen,  even  as  transplanted  to  this  con 
tinent.  Of  course,  the  knowledge  of  English 
literature  traveled  to  us  easily,  and  this  all  the 
more  because  the  responsible  literary  authori 
ties,  even  of  American  imprint,  were  then  al 
most  wholly  English ;  the  leader  among  them, 
in  my  boyhood,  being  the  weekly  "Albion," 
then  published  in  New  York.  It  is  to  be  re 
membered,  however,  that  the  actual  contact 
with  such  English  authors,  statesmen,  or  men 
of  high  social  rank  as  visited  this  country  was 
then  easier  in  Boston  and  Cambridge  than 
elsewhere,  because  the  early  Cunard  steamers 
made  Boston,  not  New  York,  their  terminus. 
In  the  society  of  that  city,  and  still  more  in  the 
academical  society  of  Cambridge,  it  was  more 
common  than  now,  very  probably,  to  meet  dis- 


THE   ROAD   TO   ENGLAND  351 

tinguished  Englishmen.  It  was  rare  indeed  to 
see  the  Harvard  Commencement  events  pass 
by  without  visitors  of  this  description. 

Englishwomen  of  rank,  however,  rarely  came 
to  America,  nor  do  they  abound  even  now.  I 
think  that  the  first  titled  Englishwoman  whom 
I  ever  met  was  that  very  original  and  attractive 
young  representative  of  this  class,  Lady  Amber- 
ley,  who  visited  this  country  about  1868, — 
daughter  of  Lord  Stanley  of  Alderley,  and  wife 
of  the  young  Lord  Amberley,  son  and  heir  of 
Earl  Russell.  I  had  found  it  quite  easy  to 
overcome  the  vague  American  deference  for 
the  supposed  authority  of  a  title  in  case  of  the 
Englishmen  of  rank  who  had  passed  before 
my  eyes ;  for  I  could  not  convince  myself  that 
their  manners  or  bearing  were  superior  to  those 
of  various  gentlemen  —  Bostonians,  Philadel- 
phians,  and  Virginians  —  whom  I  had  met.  I 
may  add  that  no  later  experience  has  ever 
removed  this  impression,  while  undoubtedly 
the  Latin  blood  often  exhibits  to  us,  even  in 
lower  social  grades,  finer  examples  of  courtesy 
than  can  easily  be  paralleled  in  the  Germanic 
races. 

Thus  much  for  Englishmen  of  rank ;  and  as 
for  women  of  the  corresponding  class,  it  is  cer 
tain  that  Miss  Burney's  and  Miss  Edgeworth's 
novels  had  formed  for  us  a  very  imperfect  an- 


352  CONTEMPORARIES 

ticipation  of  such  a  type  as  Lady  Amberley,  a 
girlish  wife  of  nineteen,  as  frank  and  simple  as 
any  American  girl,  and  with  much  more  active 
interest  in  real  things  than  was  to  be  found  in 
most  of  the  Newport  dowagers  who  shook  their 
heads  over  her  heretical  opinions.  I  had  once 
the  pleasure  of  driving  her  in  a  pony  phaeton 
to  Whitehall,  a  former  residence  of  the  Eng 
lish  bishop,  Berkeley,  and  the  place  where  he 
wrote  his  "  Minute  Philosopher."  All  the  memo 
ries  of  Berkeley,  I  observed,  did  not  absorb  the 
boyish  husband  and  wife  so  eagerly  as  the  old- 
fashioned  well-sweep  that  crowned  the  well ; 
and  they  were  never  weary  of  pulling  down  the 
buckets.  I  took  her,  on  the  way,  to  call  on  La 
Farge  and  see  his  then  recent  designs  from 
Browning;  being  dismayed,  however,  to  learn 
from  her  that  although  Browning  was  a  great 
favorite  socially  at  her  father's  house  in  Lon 
don,  yet  neither  she  nor  her  friends  cared  any 
thing  about  his  poetry.  She  talked  with  the 
greatest  frankness  about  everything,  being  par 
ticularly  interested  in  Vassar  College,  then  the 
only  example  of  its  class ;  and  she  persistently 
asked  all  the  young  girls  why  they  did  not  go 
there,  until  she  was  bluntly  met  at  last  by  a 
young  married  woman  as  frank  in  speech  as 
herself,  though  less  enlightened,  who  assured 
her  that  no  society  girl  would  think  of  going  to 


THE   ROAD   TO   ENGLAND  353 

college,  and  that  nobody  went  there  except  the 
daughters  of  "  mechanics  and  ministers." 

I  remember  that  she  in  turn  gave  me  some 
admirable  suggestions  from  her  own  point 
of  view ;  as,  for  instance,  when  I  asked  her 
whether  the  highest  London  society  was  not 
made  more  tame  by  the  fact  that  all  guests  were 
necessarily  determined  by  rank  rather  than  by 
preference,  and  she  answered  that  it  was  not 
so  at  all,  pointing  out  the  simple  fact  that  the 
recognized  aristocracy  was  on  quite  too  large  a 
scale  to  be  included  in  any  private  drawing- 
room,  so  that  there  had  to  be  a  selection,  and 
this  made  it  very  easy  to  drop  out  the  unavail 
able  patricians,  and  bring  in  plebeians  who  were 
personally  attractive.  Young  girls,  for  example, 
she  said,  who  were  staying  as  guests  in  great 
houses,  and  who  had  strong  points  in  the  way 
of  beauty  or  music  or  conversation,  might  have 
an  immensely  successful  social  career,  however 
unknown  or  humble  their  origin,  while  whole 
families  of  magnates  would  come  from  the  more 
distant  counties  for  the  London  season  and  en 
tirely  fail  of  actual  success.  "I  know  lots  of 
dukes'  daughters,"  she  said  casually,  "who 
get  no  attention  whatever."  There  was  really 
something  quite  delicious,  to  my  republican  ears, 
in  thus  sweeping,  as  it  were,  a  debris  of  dukes' 
daughters  into  this  dustpan  of  indifference. 


354  CONTEMPORARIES 

Perhaps  the  young  speaker  was  herself  not 
so  much  a  type  as  a  bit  of  eccentricity,  yet  she 
was  an  interesting  and  high-minded  one,  and 
reinforced  her  equally  independent  but  person 
ally  insignificant  husband  with  potent  strength. 
There  was  a  story  in  Cambridge  that  when  he 
had  rashly  trusted  himself,  one  day,  in  a  circle 
of  bright  people  without  her,  and  had  suffered 
some  repression,  she  drove  out  the  next  day 
alone  to  fight  the  battle  over  again  with  the 
accomplished  host.  "Mr. ,"  she  said  im 
petuously,  "Amberley  has  been  telling  me 
what  you  were  saying  to  him  yesterday.  Now 
you  know  that  's  all  bosh."  This  story  gave 
some  pleasure,  I  fear,  to  those  previously  dis 
posed  to  take  sides  against  her  entertainer,  and 
it  suggests  a  somewhat  similar  bit  of  retaliation 
which  occurred  in  case  of  another  English  vis 
itor,  also  highly  connected,  but  oppressively  well 
informed,  who  once  at  a  Philadelphia  dinner 
table,  when  some  suburban  town  in  Pennsyl 
vania  was  mentioned,  remarked  incidentally 
that  its  population  was  3278.  While  the  com 
pany  sat  dumb  with  admiration,  a  quiet  man 
farther  down  at  the  table,  who  had  hitherto 
been  speechless,  opened  his  lips  to  say :  "  I 
think  the  gentleman  is  mistaken.  The  popu 
lation  is  3304."  An  eminent  Oxford  professor 
told  me,  years  after,  that  this  incident,  which 


THE   ROAD   TO   ENGLAND  355 

soon  got  into  the  newspapers,  might  be  said  to 
have  delighted  two  continents. 

When  I  lived  at  Newport,  R.  I.,  from  1864 
to  1878,  there  was  a  constant  procession  of 
foreign  visitors,  varying  in  interest  and  often 
quite  wanting  in  it.  I  remember  one  eminent 
literary  man,  who,  in  spite  of  all  cautions  to 
the  contrary,  appeared  at  a  rather  fashionable 
day  reception  in  what  would  now  be  called  a 
golf  suit,  of  the  loudest  possible  plaid,  like  that 
of  the  Scotch  cousin  in  Punch  who  comes  down 
thus  dressed  for  church,  to  the  terror  of  his 
genteel  cousins.  What  was  more,  the  visitor 
also  wore  a  spyglass  of  great  size,  hung  round 
his  neck,  all  through  the  entertainment.  An 
other  highly  connected  Englishman,  attending 
an  evening  reception  given  expressly  for  him, 
came  into  the  parlor  with  his  hat  and  umbrella 
in  his  hand,  declining  to  be  parted  from  them 
through  the  whole  evening ;  which  suggested 
to  a  clever  Newport  lady  the  story  of  the  show 
man  who  exhibited  a  picture  of  Daniel  in  the 
lion's  den,  and  who  pointed  out  that  Daniel  was 
to  be  distinguished  from  the  lions  by  having  a 
blue  cotton  umbrella  under  his  arm.  In  this 
case,  the  lady  remarked  that  the  conditions 
were  reversed,  since  it  was  the  lion  that  carried 
the  umbrella. 

One  certainly  saw  at  Newport  many  foreigners 


356  CONTEMPORARIES 

of  distinction  and  positive  interest,  especially 
at  the  house  of  Mr.  George  Bancroft,  where  I 
remember  to  have  met  the  Emperor  of  Brazil, 
traveling  as  Dom  Pedro,  with  his  wife,  she  hav 
ing  with  her  a  little  lady  in  waiting  who  felt  it  her 
duty  to  go  about  and  whisper  to  the  other  guests 
not  to  forget  that  her  Imperial  Majesty  was  a 
Bourbon.  When  I  paused  to  recall  what  that 
name  had  signified  through  centuries  of  despot 
ism  and  gloom,  it  was  startling  to  think  that  I 
was  sitting  on  the  same  sofa  chatting  peacefully 
with  one  of  its  last  representatives.  A  more 
interesting  visitor  was  Thomas  Hughes,  still  dear 
to  the  schoolboy  heart,  whom  I  took  up  on  the 
cliffs  for  a  stroll,  which  he  has  kindly  commem 
orated  in  his  published  journal,  but  which  was 
saddened  to  me  by  the  fact  that  as  we  stood  to 
gether  beside  the  Spouting  Rock,  and  he,  despite 
caution,  went  too  near,  a  sudden  jet  of  salt  water 
deluged  his  only  white  duck  suit  from  top  to 
toe,  and  he  was  driven  hastily  back  to  the  house. 
I  recall  with  pleasure,  also,  a  visit  to  Newport 
by  the  young  Baron  Mackay,  now  Lord  Reay, 
whom  I  took  with  me,  at<  his  request,  to  see  a 
public  grammar  school,  where  he  talked  to  the 
children  with  such  simplicity  and  frankness  as 
to  win  their  hearts,  and  to  prefigure  his  fine 
career  as  chairman  of  the  London  school  board, 
lord  rector  of  St.  Andrews  University,  presi- 


THE  ROAD  TO   ENGLAND  357 

dent  of   University  College,  and  governor  of 
Bombay. 

It  may  be  said  in  return  that  American 
strangers  who  had  decent  introductions  were 
most  kindly  received,  a  quarter  of  a  century  ago, 
in  London.  A  little  flavor  of  foreignness  was 
not  only  borne  patiently,  but  accepted  as  a  merit ; 
and  indeed  Lord  Houghton  told  me  that  the 
early  Americans,  as  Ticknor  and  Sumner,  had 
been  sometimes  characterized  as  not  having 
enough  flavor  of  their  own  soil.  I  cannot  for 
get,  however,  that  Miss  Kate  Field,  then  liv 
ing  in  London  and  having  a  decided  circle  of 
popularity  of  her  own,  used  to  declare  that  the 
English  kindliness  towards  our  fellow  country 
men  was  strictly  limited  by  selfishness  ;  that 
it  must  be  a  poor  letter  of  introduction  which 
would  not  bring  forth  an  invitation  to  dinner. 
"After  that,"  she  said,  "if  you  do  not  make 
yourself  agreeable,  they  will  drop  you  like  a 
hot  potato."  From  this  calamity  a  very  short 
stay  is  a  sure  preventive,  and  may  work  suc 
cessful  results,  like  Sam  Weller's  brief  love 
letter.  At  the  time  of  my  first  visit  (1872) 
many  cultivated  Englishmen  were  meditating 
visits  to  America,  and  even  lecturing  tours,  so 
that  such  men  as  Tyndall,  Froude,  and  others 
were  naturally  inclined  to  make  the  acquaint 
ance  of  those  familiar  with  the  field,  —  and 


358  CONTEMPORARIES 

authors,  too,  are  always  fancied  to  be  kindly 
disposed  to  those  who  write  literary  criticisms 
for  the  press.  It  was  also  a  period  when  two 
or  three  American  writers  were  so  enormously 
popular  in  England  that  I  could  at  once  com 
mand  the  ear  of  any  Englishwoman  by  telling 
her  that  I  had  been  a  pupil  of  Longfellow,  or 
of  any  Englishman  by  dropping  out  the  fact 
that  I  had  dined  with  Mark  Twain  in  his  own 
house  and  that  he  had  said  grace  at  table. 

But  even  apart  from  these  phantom  ties  I 
was  constantly  struck  with  the  genuine  spirit  of 
hospitality  among  Englishmen  toward  Ameri 
cans  as  such,  even  those  with  whose  pursuits 
they  might  have  almost  nothing  in  common, 
and  for  whom  they  had  not  the  least  reason  to 
put  themselves  out.  I  liked  this  none  the  less 
because  it  had  definite  limitations  as  to  pecuniary 
obligations  and  the  like,  excluding  everything 
in  the  nature  of  "treating;"  all  this  being,  in 
my  opinion,  a  weak  point  in  our  more  gushing 
or  more  self-conscious  habit.  I  remember  to 
have  once  been  taken  by  a  gentleman,  on  whom 
I  had  but  the  slightest  claim,  to  the  country 
house  of  another,  on  whom  I  had  no  claim 
whatever.  The  latter  was  not  at  all  literary,  and 
had  not  even  the  usual  vague  English  interest 
in  American  affairs ;  yet  he  gave  up  his  whole 
afternoon  to  drive  me  to  Kenilworth,  which  he 


THE   ROAD   TO   ENGLAND  359 

had  seen  a  thousand  times.  But  that  for  which 
I  liked  him  best,  and  which  afforded  a  wholly 
new  experience,  was  that,  as  we  entered  the 
outer  doorway,  he,  going  first,  looked  back  over 
his  shoulder  and  said  simply,  "  They  make  you 
pay  threepence  for  admission  here,"  and  then 
added,  speaking  to  the  attendant,  "  Here  is  my 
threepence."  After  all  the  time  and  trouble 
he  had  given  to  his  stranger  guest,  he  yet  left 
him  to  pay  his  own  threepence,  a  thing  which 
most  Americans  would  not  have  dreamed  of 
doing.  It  would  have  been  the  American 
notion  of  good  breeding  to  save  a  guest  from 
expense,  as  it  was  the  English  impulse  to  save 
him  from  the  sense  of  obligation.  I  confess 
that  I  prefer  the  latter  method. 

On  the  other  hand,  I  was  much  impressed 
with  the  English  weakness  constantly  shown 
in  the  eagerness  of  even  radical  audiences  to 
secure,  if  possible,  a  man  of  rank  to  take  the 
chair  at  any  public  meeting  ;  and  also  with  the 
deference  with  which  such  hearers  would  listen 
to  very  poor  or  dull  speaking  if  backed  by  a 
title,  while  they  would  promptly  stamp  down  a 
man  of  their  own  rank,  with  a  rudeness  rarely 
paralleled  in  America,  if  he  spoke  a  little  too 
long  or  not  clearly  enough.  This  I  noticed,  for 
instance,  at  a  large  meeting  in  the  Freemason's 
Tavern  (in  1878),  at  which  I  had  been  invited 


360  CONTEMPORARIES 

to  speak  in  favor  of  opening  picture  galleries 
and  museums  on  Sunday.  Lord  Rosebery  and 
Lord  Dunraven  both  argued  acceptably,  followed 
by  the  late  Lord  Dorchester,  who  spoke  with 
the  greatest  difficulty  and  quite  inaudibly,  but 
received  nevertheless  a  rapt  attention,  whereas 
a  delegate  from  Manchester,  who  spoke  far 
better  and  more  to  the  point,  was  stamped 
down  without  mercy.  In  following  him  I  was 
received  and  heard  with  the  greatest  cordiality 
as  an  American,  while  I  said  nothing  to  com 
pare  in  value  with  what  the  man  from  Manches 
ter  had  said.  Again,  it  is  held  in  England 
perfectly  legitimate  for  a  party  to  break  up  by 
force  a  meeting  of  the  opposite  party,  whereas 
this  is  very  rare  with  us,  and  always  hurts  the 
rioters.  Much  is  said  about  the  English  love 
of  fair  play,  but  this  instinct  would  really  seem 
less  strong  among  the  English  than  among  our 
selves. 

I  had  the  great  advantage,  both  in  England 
and  France,  of  being  sent  in  1878  as  a  delegate 
to  some  prison  discipline  meetings ;  and  al 
though  this  was  a  subject  with  which  I  was 
somewhat  unfamiliar,  yet  I  went,  fortunately, 
under  the  wing  of  the  late  Rev.  Dr.  E.  C. 
Wines,  whom  I  found  everywhere  to  be  treated 
with  great  deference  as  the  recognized  leader 
in  that  whole  matter.  I  particularly  enjoyed  a 


THE   ROAD   TO   ENGLAND  361 

meeting  at  the  Social  Science  Rooms  in  Lon 
don  at  which  the  late  Lord  Carnarvon  presided. 
I  became  acquainted  for  the  first  time  with  the 
much  more  formal  habits  of  English  public 
meetings,  as  compared  with  ours,  —  the  elab 
orate  proposing  and  seconding  of  everything, 
even  of  votes  of  thanks  to  chairmen  and  secre 
taries,  always  accompanied  by  speeches  by  the 
proposer  and  seconder.  I  noticed  there,  also, 
the  marked  difference  between  English  and 
Irish  public  speaking,  the  latter  exemplified  by 
the  late  Lord  O'Hagan,  and  remarkable  in  his 
case  for  its  ease  and  flow. 

But  most  remarkable  of  all,  and  surpassing 
in  spontaneous  oratory  anything  I  ever  heard 
in  England,  was  the  speech,  at  this  meeting,  of 
Cardinal  Manning,  a  man  whose  whole  bearing 
made  him,  as  my  friend  Moncure  Conway  said, 
"the  very  evolution  of  an  ecclesiastic."  Even 
the  shape  of  his  head  showed  the  development 
of  his  function ;  he  had  the  noble  brow  and  thin 
ascetic  jaw,  from  which  everything  not  belong 
ing  to  the  upper  realms  of  thought  and  action 
seemed  to  have  been  visibly  pared  away ;  his 
mouth  had  singular  mobility ;  his  voice  was  in 
the  last  degree  winning  and  persuasive ;  his 
tones  had  nothing  in  them  specifically  English, 
but  might  have  been  those  of  a  highly  culti 
vated  American,  or  Frenchman,  or  Italian,  or 


362  CONTEMPORARIES 

even  German.  I  felt  as  if  I  had  for  the  first 
time  met  a  man  of  the  world,  in  the  highest 
sense,  —  and  even  of  all  worlds.  His  know 
ledge  of  the  subject  seemed  greater  than  that 
of  any  other  speaker;  his  convictions  were 
wholly  large  and  humane,  and  he  urged  them 
with  a  gentle  and  controlling  courtesy  that  dis 
armed  opposition.  In  reading  his  memoirs, 
long  after,  I  recognized  the  limitations  which 
came  from  such  a  temperament  and  breeding ; 
but  all  his  wonderful  career  of  influence  in 
England  existed  by  implication  in  that  one 
speech  at  the  Prison  Congress.  If  I  were  look 
ing  for  reasons  in  favor  of  the  Roman  Catholic 
Church,  its  strongest  argument,  in  my  opinion, 
would  be  its  power  to  develop  and  promote  to 
high  office  one  such  man.  The  individual  who 
stands  next  to  him  in  my  personal  experience, 
and  perhaps  even  as  his  superior,  is  a  French 
priest  I  once  met  by  chance  in  one  of  the  great 
Continental  cathedrals,  and  whose  very  name  I 
do  not  know ;  but  who  impressed  and  charmed 
me  so  profoundly  by  his  face,  manner,  and  voice, 
it  has  seemed  to  me  ever  since  that  if  I  waked 
up  to  find  myself  betrayed  into  a  great  crime,  I 
should  wish  to  cross  the  ocean  to  confess  it  to 
him. 

In  meeting  the  Englishman  whom  I  had  per 
haps  most  desired  to  encounter,  —  Mr.  Glad- 


THE   ROAD   TO   ENGLAND  363 

stone,  —  I  had  a  curious  illustration  of  the  uncer 
tain  quality  of  a  letter  of  introduction.  On  one's 
first  visit  to  a  foreign  country  one  collects  such 
letters  with  a  curious  interest,  as  if  each  were  a 
magic  key  to  open  a  realm  of  unbounded  pro 
mise  ;  but  he  may  live  to  find  that  there  is  much 
difference  in  the  keys.  Thus  I  was  offered  a 
letter  to  Mr.  Gladstone  from  an  English  clergy 
man,  an  Oxford  doctor  of  divinity,  not  now  living, 
who  had  resided  for  some  time  in  this  country 
as  a  very  successful  tutor  or  coach  for  college 
students.  He  had  written,  when  in  England,  a 
pamphlet  in  support  of  Gladstone,  at  some  im 
portant  crisis,  and  in  his  letter  of  introduction 
recalled  himself  to  the  great  man's  memory  by 
this  good  deed.  On  arriving  in  London  I  sent 
out  my  letters  with  my  card  in  the  usual  way, 
and  that  to  Mr.  Gladstone  was  the  only  one 
which  remained  unanswered.  This  state  of 
things  continuing  for  many  days,  it  crossed  my 
mind  that  I  had  heard  a  vague  rumor  at  home 
to  the  effect  that  the  clergyman  had  left  Eng 
land  under  a  cloud,  and  mentioning  the  matter 
to  Sir  John  Rose,  whom  I  had  met  in  America 
and  whom  I  knew  to  be  on  intimate  terms  with 
Mr.  Gladstone,  the  matter  was  soon  set  right, 
and  the  obstacle  turned  out  to  have  been  just 
what  I  supposed.  After  all,  however,  I  had  but 
a  brief  interview  with  Mr.  Gladstone,  by  his  own 


364  CONTEMPORARIES 

appointment,  on  which  occasion,  as  I  find  by 
my  notebook,  I  was  struck  with  his  being  in 
voice  and  appearance  more  like  an  American 
than  most  Englishmen  I  had  seen.  He  was 
surprisingly  well  acquainted  with  our  leading 
American  authors,  and  came  near  to  conceding, 
so  I  fancied,  that  the  outcome  of  our  civil  war 
had  been  quite  unlike  what  he  had  expected. 
He  showed  great  pleasure  in  the  fact  that  Ed 
ward  Everett  had  sent  his  son  to  the  English 
Cambridge,  and  expressed  earnest  hope  that 
this  would  become  more  common  for  American 
youth.  It  was  pleasant  to  carry  him  the  first  in 
formation  that  his  "Juventus  Mundi"  had  been 
reprinted  in  this  country,  a  thing  which  seemed 
to  please  him  exceedingly.  I  find  recorded  of 
him  in  my  brief  diary  :  "  A  fine,  wise,  keen  face, 
a  voice  like  Emerson's  without  the  hesitancy." 
My  visit  to  London  being  very  hurried,  it  was 
necessary  to  decline  an  invitation  to  breakfast, 
and  through  a  series  of  circumstances  we  did 
not  meet  again. 

The  radical  side  of  London  was  more  con 
spicuous  then  than  now,  and  I  should  have  been 
extremely  sorry  to  have  missed  it.  I  wished 
particularly  to  hear  Charles  Bradlaugh,  who  was 
just  at  the  height  of  his  fame  as  a  popular 
speaker.  I  was  piloted  to  his  hall  by  Mr. 
Odger,  a  prominent  workingmen's  leader,  —  a 


THE   ROAD   TO    ENGLAND  365 

diminutive,  sturdily  built  man,  who  ploughed  his 
way  before  me  through  the  Sunday  evening 
crowd  like  a  bluff  little  English  tug  making  the 
way  for  a  clumsier  craft.  The  place  of  meet 
ing  was  a  low  and  dingy  hall,  crowded  with  peo 
ple  who  listened  with  great  enthusiasm  to  an 
address  on  "Jehovah."  Bradlaugh  seemed  to 
me  one  of  the  natural  orators,  like  Beecher,  a 
man  of  commanding  appearance  and  fine  voice, 
and  without  mere  sensationalism  or  the  pursuit 
of  antagonism  for  its  own  sake ;  in  all  these 
points  quite  surpassing  Colonel  Ingersoll,  with 
whom  he  has  been  often  compared.  I  never 
shall  forget  the  impressiveness  of  one  passage 
in  which  he  described  a  shipwrecked  mother, 
stranded  upon  a  rock  in  the  ocean  during  a 
rising  tide,  and  continually  lifting  her  baby 
higher  and  higher,  still  praying  to  her  God  to 
preserve  her  child,  until  the  moment  when  the 
pitiless  waves  submerged  them  both.  I  im 
agined  that  it  would  be  almost  impossible  to 
paint  a  picture  from  the  agnostic  point  of  view 
which  would  be  more  powerful  with  an  audi 
ence.  He  came  to  lunch  with  me  a  few  days 
later,  and  I  found  in  his  talk  that  vigor  and 
power  of  adaptation  which  made  his  career  in 
Parliament  so  remarkable.  I  saw  him  also  in 
frequent  attendance  at  the  trial  of  Mrs.  Annie 
Besant,  an  occasion  which  presented  the  strange 


366  CONTEMPORARIES 

combination  of  a  contest  for  the  custody  of  a 
child  between  a  Christian  father  and  an  athe 
istic  or  agnostic  mother,  the  case  being  up  for 
determination  before  a  Jewish  judge. 

It  is  a  constant  attraction  about  London  that 
the  step  from  the  associations  of  radicalism  to 
those  of  royalty  is  always  easy,  and  implies 
hardly  more  than  the  crossing  of  a  park.  So  I 
felt,  at  least,  when,  on  May  13,  1878, 1  found  my 
self  taking  the  breezy  walk  on  a  showery  morn 
ing  from  Aldershot  railway  station  to  the  Com 
mon,  amid  an  irregular  procession  of  carriages 
and  pedestrians,  with  that  fringe  of  vagabond 
life,  always  more  abundant  and  picturesque  in 
England  than  among  ourselves,  consisting  of 
gypsies,  showmen,  tinkers,  peddlers,  and  don 
keys.  One  of  the  habitual  English  showers 
came  on.  A  crowd  under  dripping  umbrellas 
soon  loses  all  visible  distinction  of  caste,  and  I 
drifted  easily  into  a  very  favorable  position, 
quite  near  the  flagstaff  beneath  which  the  Ma 
jesty  of  England  was  to  take  its  stand  for  a  re 
view  of  troops.  In  England,  when  it  is  sun 
shine,  men  know  it  will  soon  rain ;  and  when  it 
rains  hard  they  know  that  the  sun  will  promptly 
reappear.  In  this  case  the  gleaming  of  light 
was  presently  brilliant ;  umbrellas  were  lowered, 
raindrops  glistened  on  horses'  manes  and  on 
officers'  plumes,  and  brightly  against  the  in- 


THE   ROAD    TO   ENGLAND  367 

tense  green  of  English  hills  shone  the  scarlet 
regiments  advancing  to  take  their  places.  Her 
Majesty  has  the  royal  virtue  of  punctuality, 
and  all  eyes  were  turned  toward  a  low  straw 
wagon  with  two  white  ponies  which  came  trot 
ting  along  the  line  of  spectators. 

But  presently  all  eyes  were  turned  in  another 
direction,  where  they  were  riveted  so  long  that 
the  Queen  herself  became  an  object  of  second 
ary  interest.  Two  soldiers  had  long  stood  ready 
at  the  flagstaff  to  hoist  the  great  standard,  and 
when  the  Queen  was  seen  the  signal  for  its 
raising  was  given.  Up  it  went,  flapping  in  the 
strong  wind ;  but  so  clumsily  was  the  flag 
handled  that  it  was  wrapped  around  the  staff, 
and  not  half  of  it  blew  out  freely.  The  men 
twitched  and  tugged  in  vain  ;  and  her  Majesty 
drove  by,  apparently  not  noticing  the  mishap, 
but  nodding  and  smiling  good-naturedly  to  some 
of  the  ladies  who  sat  in  favored  positions. 

When  she  had  gone  by  and  had  turned  to 
drive  past  the  line  of  troops  opposite  us,  there 
was  a  subdued  murmur  of  "  Lower  the  flag, 
and  try  it  again."  An  officer  stepped  forward 
to  give  orders,  and  down  it  came.  Then  it  be 
gan  to  go  up  once  more,  this  time  blowing  out 
clearly,  until  it  reached  half-mast  and  stopped. 
There  was  a  general  groan.  Again  twitching 
and  pulling  were  tried  in  vain ;  the  halyard  was 


368  CONTEMPORARIES 

plainly  choked  in  the  block.  At  last  a  soldier 
advanced  to  climb  the  flagstaff ;  subdued  cheers 
greeted  him  ;  the  Queen  was  now  far  away, 
driving  down  the  long  line  of  soldiers ;  there 
was  plenty  of  time.  Up  and  up  he  went,  and 
when  he  stopped,  halfway,  to  rest,  the  cheering 
grew  more  outspoken.  But  more  than  halfway 
up  he  never  got,  and  the  cheering  died  into  a 
muffled  groan  when  the  poor  fellow,  with  a 
sheepish  smile,  slid  slowly  downward,  quite  ex 
hausted  ;  and  the  flag  was  still  at  half-mast,  and 
the  Queen  was  still  advancing. 

Then,  after  a  pause  and  hurried  consultation, 
came  forward  a  cavalryman,  and  great  was  the 
relief  when,  on  stripping  off  his  coat,  he  showed 
the  tattooed  arms  of  a  sailor.  "  Bless  him !  " 
gasped  a  lady  near  me.  " There's  but  just 
time  ! "  growled  her  husband.  Up  went  the 
bold  dragoon,  not  stopping  even  to  take  off  his 
heavy  boots ;  no  applause  met  him  till  he  had 
passed  the  point  where  his  predecessor  had 
stopped  ;  then  all  seemed  to  take  breath,  and 
the  murmur  of  triumph  swelled.  But  as  he 
went  higher  he  went  ominously  slower ;  and  ten 
feet  from  the  top,  utterly  powerless  to  climb 
an  inch  farther,  he  stuck  helpless,  an  object  of 
dismay  to  twenty  thousand  people.  Stretching 
out  his  tired  arm,  bending  and  unbending  it,  as 
if  to  say,  "  If  you  only  knew  how  I  feel !  "  the 


THE   ROAD   TO   ENGLAND  369 

poor  victim  of  unavailing  patriotism  slid  slowly 
down ;  and  there  was  the  Queen  now  in  full 
sight  and  rapidly  approaching. 

The  commander  of  her  advance  guard  had 
just  reached  the  flagstaff  as  the  poor  cavalry 
man  slunk  back  among  his  mates.  "  Pull  down 
that  flag ! "  shouted  the  officer  or  somebody. 
Down  it  came,  and  her  Majesty  the  Queen  of 
England  and  Empress  of  India  reviewed  her 
troops  without  a  flag  over  her  head.  I  do  not 
know  how  many  Englishmen  present  recalled 
the  fact  that  a  somewhat  similar  mishap  occurred 
when  the  flag  of  the  ill-fated  Charles  I.  was  first 
raised  at  Nottingham,  in  1642  ;  indeed,  I  did 
not  find  a  single  one  who  remembered  it ;  but 
it  was  at  least  a  curious  coincidence.  There 
was,  at  the  time  of  this  review  at  Aldershot, 
quite  a  general  impression  that  war  with  Russia 
was  impending  ;  and  the  more  songs  one  sang 
about  "the  meteor  flag  of  England,"  the  more 
awkward  it  certainly  was  to  have  the  meteor  go 
down  instead  of  up.  But  so  far  as  England's 
Queen  was  concerned,  this  annoying  test  only 
brought  out  her  finer  qualities.  Her  expression 
was,  as  all  said,  unusually  bright  and  cheerful 
on  that  day  ;  she  cast  one  light  glance  at  the 
empty  flagstaff,  and  from  that  moment  seemed 
to  ignore  the  whole  matter.  The  effect  was  to 
make  every  one  else  ignore  it,  and  all  were  soon 
absorbed  in  the  brilliancy  of  the  review. 


370  CONTEMPORARIES 

That  is,  it  was  called  very  brilliant ;  and  no 
doubt  the  predominant  English  scarlet  is  incom 
parably  more  effective  to  the  eye  than  our  sober 
blue.  But  the  very  perfection  of  the  appoint 
ments  made  it  all  seem  to  me  rather  a  play- 
soldier  affair ;  I  had  grown  so  accustomed  to 
judging  of  soldiers  by  their  look  of  actual  ser 
vice  that  a  single  company  of  bronzed  and  tat 
tered  men  would  have  been  a  positive  relief 
among  these  great  regiments  of  smooth-faced 
boys.  This  involved  no  reproach  to  the  young 
recruits,  and  did  not  affect  the  mere  spectacle, 
but  it  impaired  the  moral  interest.  However, 
the  drill  and  the  marching  were  good,  though 
there  is  a  sort  of  heaviness  about  the  British 
soldier  when  compared  with  the  wonderful  vigor 
and  alertness  of  German  infantry.  As  for  the 
uniforms,  the  arms,  the  appointments,  the  horses, 
they  were  simply  admirable.  I  do  not  believe 
that  there  ever  was  an  army  in  finer  material 
condition  than  those  sixteen  thousand  men  at 
Aldershot. 

And  all  this  brilliant  display  was  subject  to  a 
woman  ;  and  when  the  final  salute  was  paid, 
every  gun  was  at  "  present  arms  "  for  her,  and 
in  her  honor  the  band  played  "  God  save  the 
Queen  !  "  I  find  written  in  my  journal :  "  There 
was  something  of  real  majesty  in  her  manner, 
as  she  stood  up  before  her  soldiers  in  acknow- 


THE    ROAD   TO   ENGLAND  371 

ledgment  of  the  salute.  She  is  short,  stout, 
with  a  rather  heavy  and  not  altogether  a  pleas 
ing  face ;  but  in  spite  of  all  this,  she  has  a  dig 
nity  of  bearing  which  amounts  almost  to  grace, 
and  is  the  only  personal  charm  that  her  subjects 
claim  for  her.  Even  this  does  not  make  her 
exactly  popular,  and  at  this  very  time  I  heard 
ungracious  remarks  in  regard  to  the  large 
Highlander,  John  Brown,  her  confidential  ser 
vant,  who,  in  gorgeous  array,  sat  behind  her 
Majesty,  much  more  lofty  and  conspicuous  than 
herself.  But  I  am  afraid  it  is  true  that  England 
still  prefers  to  be  ruled  by  a  queen  ;  and  it  is 
certain  that  the  present  sovereign  will  hold  her 
prerogatives,  such  as  they  are,  with  a  firm  hand. 
I  never  find  myself  quite  such  a  ruthless  repub 
lican  anywhere  else  as  in  England  —  and  yet 
there  is  a  certain  historic  interest  and  satisfac 
tion,  after  the  long  subordination  of  women,  in 
thinking  that  the  leading  monarchy  of  the  world 
still  takes  its  orders  from  a  woman's  hand." 

It  has  rarely  happened  in  history  that  a  single 
sovereign,  by  the  mere  prolongation  of  a  peace 
ful  reign,  has  so  influenced  human  history  as 
has  been  the  case  with  Queen  Victoria.  It  was 
everywhere  distinctly  recognized  in  England, 
in  1878,  even  among  radicals,  that  this  strong 
personal  influence  was  sure  to  be  exerted  while 
she  lived.  I  was  struck  with  the  remark  made 


372  CONTEMPORARIES 

by  one  of  the  ablest  women  I  met,  the  late  Mrs. 
Augusta  Webster,  who  pointed  out  to  me  that, 
in  the  existing  state  of  public  opinion,  the  Brit 
ish  throne  was  a  thing  just  suited  to  a  woman. 
It  was  largely,  she  said,  a  position  of  ceremony ; 
the  sovereign  must  reign  without  governing. 
Now  this  would  hardly  be  a  dignified  position 
for  a  man ;  one  occupying  it  must  either  seem 
rather  insignificant,  or  else  be  tempted  to  acts 
of  aggression  in  order  to  enhance  his  dignity, 
and  this  the  people  would  not  endure.  An 
English  army  officer  of  high  rank  told  me,  in 
that  same  year,  when  I  asked  him  if  England 
would  ever  become  a  republic,  that  while  the 
Queen  lived  it  would  be  an  absolute  impos 
sibility  ;  but  that  if  she  outlived  the  Prince  of 
Wales,  which  was  quite  possible,  and  if  there 
were  then  to  be  a  disputed  succession,  or  some 
young  and  imprudent  sovereign  were  to  ascend 
the  throne,  it  would  be  difficult  to  predict  the 
consequences.  There  is  undoubtedly  much  less 
of  visible  republican  feeling  in  England  to-day 
than  was  the  case  twenty  years  ago ;  but  we 
must  always  remember,  on  the  other  hand,  that 
the  Emperor  of  Germany,  with  all  his  high-flown 
theories  of  absolutism,  is  Queen  Victoria's  grand 
son  ;  that  he  has  been  claimed  by  some  Eng 
lish  journals  as  the  rightful  heir  to  the  English 
crown ;  and  that,  even  if  we  set  this  heirship 


THE   ROAD   TO   ENGLAND  373 

aside  as  wholly  impossible,  we  do  not  know  what 
influence  his  example  might  have  upon  that 
still  untried  cousin  who  may  succeed  to  the 
throne.  I  have  never  yet  met  an  Englishman 
who  would  admit  that  the  British  people  would 
tolerate  for  a  month  any  assumptions  like  those 
habitually  made  by  the  present  German  Em 
peror.  Great  as  might  be  the  sacrifice  implied 
in  the  adoption  of  a  republic,  I  am  persuaded 
that  to  the  vast  majority  of  Englishmen  it  would 
be  the  more  palatable  alternative,  than  to  be 
ruled,  I  will  not  say  by  him  personally,  but  by 
such  traditions  and  standards  as  he  represents. 


INDEX 


ABBOTT,  J.  S.  C.,  145. 

Adams,  C.  F.,  2915. 

Adams,  John,  4,  5,  260,  278,  282. 

Adams,  J.  Q.,  51,  259,  295. 

Adams,  Samuel,  269,  285. 

/Eschylus,  99. 

Albert   Edward,   Prince  of  Wales, 

372- 

Alcott,  A.  B.,  23-33. 
Alcott,  Louisa,  27. 
Amberley,  Lady,  351,  352. 
Amberley,  Lord,  351,  354. 
Ames,  Fisher,  4,  5. 
Anaxagoras,  125. 
Andrew,  J.  A.,  256,  295. 
Angelo,  Michael,  8. 
Appleton,  Nathaniel,  190. 
Aristotle,  99. 
Arnold,  Matthew,  15. 
Austin,  J.  T.,  259. 

Bachiler,  Father,  70. 
Bancroft,  George,  5,  356. 
Banks,  Sir  Joseph,  195. 
Barclay,  Robert,  (of  Ury),  71. 
Barlow,  Joel,  4. 
Bartlett,  John,  172,  174,  182. 
Beecher,  H.  W.,  49,  365. 
Berkeley,  George,  352. 
Besant,  Mrs.  Annie,  365. 
Birney,  J.  G.,  249,  254,  337. 
Bismarck,  C.  O.  von,  327. 
Bonaparte,  Napoleon,   57,   77,  233, 

285,  298,  305,  314. 
Boswell,  James,  349. 
Botta,  Mrs.  A.  C.  L.,  156. 
Bradlaugh,  Charles,  364,  365. 
Bragg,  Braxton,  315. 
Bright,  John,  279,  302. 
Brooks,  Dr.,  112. 
Brooks,  P.  S.,  283,  284. 
Brown,  Anne,  228,  234,  237. 
Brown,  Charles  Brockden,  5. 
Brown,  Ellen,  228,  236,  237. 


Brown,  Frederick,  222. 

Brown,  Jason,  228. 

Brown,  Capt.  John,  133,  135,  210- 

243,  263,  279,  299,  300,  371. 
Brown,  Mrs.  John,  229,  239,  240, 

241,  242. 

Brown,  John,  Jr.,  228. 
Brown,  Oliver,  229,  231. 
Brown,  Owen,  228. 
Brown,  Robert,  217,  218. 
Brown,  Salmon,  228,  229,  243. 
Brown,  Sarah,  228. 
Browne,  C.  F.  (Artemus  Ward),  74. 
Browning,  Robert,  78,  100,  347,  352. 
Brutus,  17. 

Bryant,  Dr.  Henry,  200. 
Bryant,  W.  C.,  5,  116. 
Buckingham,  J.  T.,  127. 
Buckner,  S.  B.,  307. 
Buell,  D.  C.,  311,  316. 
Burke,  Edmund,  8,  116,  287. 
Burleigh,  C.  C.,  331. 
Burney,  Fanny,  116,  351. 
Burns,  Anthony,  29,  262,  297,  298. 
Burns,  Robert,  102. 
Burnside,  A.  £.,316,  320,  321, 
Butler,  B.  F.,  277. 
Byron,  Lord,  227. 

Caesar,  Julius,  303,  314,  328. 

Camors,  Vicomte  de,  273. 

Campbell,  Thomas,  350. 

Carlisle,  Earl  of,  244. 

Carlyle,  Thomas,  8,  15,  232,  267. 

Carnarvon,  Lord,  361. 

Carter,  Robert,  172. 

Cassius,  17. 

Chadbourne,  Miss,  190. 

Chamberlain,  D.  H.,  247. 

Channing,  E.  T.,  5. 

Channing,  W.  E.(Rev.),  i,  123,289. 

Channing,  W.  E.  (poet),  20. 

Channing,  W.  H.,  51,  52,  259. 

Chapman,  Maria  (Weston),  124,  264. 


376 


INDEX 


Charlemagne,  44,  45. 

Charles  I.,  86. 

Charles  1 1.,  86. 

Chase,  S.  P.,  302. 

Chatham,   William    Pitt,    Earl    of, 

286. 

Child,  D.  L.,  116. 
Child,  Lydia  Maria  (Francis),  108- 

141. 

Choate,  Rufus,  43,  267. 
Clarendon,  Lord,  13. 
Clarke,  J.  F.,  39. 
Clarke,  Sarah  F.,  153. 
Clarkson,  Thomas,  279,  302. 
Clay,  Henry,  290. 
Clemens,  S.  L.  (Mark  Twain),  358. 
Cleveland,  Grover,  161. 
Cobden,  Richard,  279,  302. 
Coleridge,  S.  T.,  18,  67,  93. 
Comte,  Auguste,  18. 
Conway,  M.  D.,  361. 
Cook,  233,  234. 
Cook,  Joseph,  30. 
Cooke,  G.  W.,  2. 
Cooper,  J.  F.,  5,  114,  115. 
Cousin,  Victor,  18. 
Cramer,  202. 
Gushing,  Caleb,  277. 

D'Alembert,  J.  C.  R.,  68. 
Dame,  Hannah,  152. 
Danton,  G.  J.,  92. 
Davis,  John,  282. 
Dejean,  P.  F.  A.,  Count,  217. 
Demosthenes,  280,  286. 
De  Stael,  Madame,  120. 
Dickens,  Charles,  99. 
Dickinson,  Emily,  162. 
Dorchester,  Lord,  360. 
Doubleday,  Edward,  209. 
Douglass,  Frederick,  224,  267. 
Dowden,  Edward,  98. 
Doyle,  Mahala,  234. 
Drury,  Drew,  202. 
Dryden,  John,  93,  330. 
Dunraven,  Lord,  360. 
D  wight,  Timothy,  287. 

Eaton,  Amos,  205. 

Edgeworth,  Maria,  351. 

Edwards,  Jonathan,  57. 

Elizabeth,  Queen,  86. 

Emerson,  Ellen  Louise  (Tucker),  7. 

Emerson,  Lidian  (Jackson),  12. 

Emerson,  Mary,  2. 

Emerson,  R.  W.,  1-22  ;  also,  23,  24, 
25,  26,  27,  28,  30,  31,  32,  46,  54, 
55.  59.  69>  78,  81,  85,  no,  151, 
157,  162,  177,  269,  270,  279,  280, 
364- 


Emerson,  Ruth  (Haskins),  i,  a. 
Emerson,  William,  i,  6. 
Emerson,  Rev.  William,  i. 
Erckmann-Chatrian,  172. 
Eschenburg,  J.  J.,  144. 
Evarts,  W.  M.,  267. 
Everett,  Edward,  193,  256,  364. 

Faber,  F.  W.,  251. 

Falkland,  Lord,  13. 

Field,  Kate,  357. 

Fielding,  Henry,  99. 

Fields,  J.  T.,  106,  151,  152. 

Fiske,  Deborah  (Vinal),  143. 

Fiske,  Helen  Maria,  143. 

Fiske,  N.  W.,  143. 

Fitch,  Charles,  250. 

Folsom,  Abby,  330,  331. 

Forbes,  Hugh,  299. 

Forrest,  N.  B.,  317. 

Foster,  Abby  (Kelley),  264. 

Foster,  S.  S.,  252,  253,  277,  336. 

Fourier,  Charles,  128,  284. 

Fox,  C.  J.,  286. 

Fox,  George,  8. 

Francis,  Convers,  109,  no,  113. 

Francis,  Elizabeth,  112. 

Francis,  Richard,  109. 

Francis,  Susannah  (Rand),  109. 

Franklin,  Benjamin,  97. 

Fre'mont,  J.  C.,  275. 

Frothingham,  N.  L.,  2,  194. 

Frothingham,  O.  B.,  7. 

Froude,  J.  A.,  357. 

Fuller,  Margaret  (see  Ossoli). 

Garibaldi,  Giuseppe,  313. 
Garnaut,  Mrs.  Eliza,  265. 
Garrett,  Thomas,  227. 
Garrison,  W.  L.,  244-256;  also  60, 

121,  263,  264,  267,  275,279,285, 

302,    330,  333,  336,  338. 
Gladstone,  W.  E.,  287,  362,  363. 
Godart,  J.  B.,  2ox. 
Goethe,  J.  W.,  von,  n,  41,  77,  289, 
Goodell,  William,  249,  250. 
Gould,  A.  A.,  199. 
Graeter,  Francis,  119. 
Grai.t,  U.  S.,  302-328  ;  also  290. 
Grattan,  T.  C..  286. 
Gray,  Asa,  214,  215. 
Greaves,  J.  P.,  27. 
Greeley,  Horace,  19,  49. 
Grimki,  Sarah,  250. 
Grimm,  Herman,  15. 
Guion,  Madame,  120. 

Hackett,  Doctor,  345-347. 
Hale,  J.  P.,  302. 
Hale,  Mrs.  S.  J.,  125. 


INDEX 


377 


Hallam,  Henry,  44. 

Hallett,  B.  F.,  259. 

Hancock,  John,  260,  278. 

Harris,  Catherine  (Holbrook),  196. 

Harris,  Mary  (Dix),  193,  194. 

Harris,  T.  M.,  192. 

Harris,  T.  W.,  192-218. 

Hawes,  Charlotte,  117. 

Hawthorne,   Nathaniel,    21,  64,  92, 

102,  103,  104,  106. 
Hawthorne.  Sophia  (Peabody),  102- 

107. 

Haydn,  Joseph,  94. 
Hayne,  P.  H.,  85,  99. 
Hegel,  G.  W.  F.,  15,  18. 
Hentz,    N.  M.,  196,    197,  203,  208, 

212,  213. 
Hereward,  292. 
Hesiod,  4. 
Hillard,  G.  S.,  259. 
Hitchcock,  Edward,  207,  215. 
Holbrook,  Amos,  196. 
Holland,  J.  G.,  163. 
Holmes,  John,  168-191. 
Holmes,  O.  W.,24,  66,  69,  71,  169, 

171,  173,  181. 
Homer,  4. 

Hopper,  I.  T.,  126,  130. 
Horsford,  E.  N.,  146. 
Houghton,  Lord,  357. 
Howe,  Estes,  172. 
Howe,  J.  M.,  172. 
Howe,  S.  G. ,  294-301. 
Howells,  W.  D.,  184. 
Hiibner,  202. 

Hughes,  Thomas,  329,  356. 
Hugo,  Victor,  84. 
Humphreys,  N.  A.,  322. 
Hunt,  E.  B.,  145,  146. 
Hunt,  Murray,  146. 
Hunt,  Washington,  145. 
Hunt,  W.  H.,  146. 
Hutchinson  family,  333-336. 
Hyacinthe,  Pere,  168. 

Ingersoll,  R.  G.,  365. 

Irving,  Washington,  5,63,  114. 

Jackson,  Andrew,  239. 

Jackson,  Charles,  12. 

Jackson,  C.  T.,  12. 

Jackson,  Francis,  139. 

Jackson,     Helen  ("  H.H."),    142- 

167. 

Jackson,  W.  S.,  153. 
James  I.,  86. 

Jefferson,  Thomas,  97,  285. 
Johnson,  Samuel,  87,  116,  350. 

{onson,  Ben,  17. 
oubert,  Joseph,  17. 


Kames,  Henry  Home,  Lord,  151. 

Kant,  Immanuel,  15. 

Keats,  John,  100,  102. 

King,  J.  G.,  42,  43- 

Kinney,  Abbott,  159. 

Kirby,  William,  206. 

Knox,  John,  3. 

Kossuth,  Louis,  15. 

La  Farge,  John,  352. 

La  Fontaine,  J.  de,  68. 

Lamartine,  A.  M.  L.  de,  342. 

Lamb,  Charles,  9. 

Lamson,  Father,  330. 

Landor,  W.  S.,  8,  280. 

Lane,  Charles,  30. 

Lane,  G.  M.,  184. 

Langbourne,  Major,  282. 

Lanier,  Jerome,  86. 

Lanier,  Sir  John,  86. 

Lanier,  Mary  (Anderson),  86. 

Lanier,  Mary  (Day),  89. 

Lanier,  Nicholas,  86. 

Lanier,  R.  S.,  86. 

Lanier,  Sidney,  85-101 ;  also  83. 

Lanier,  Thomas,  86. 

Latreille,  P.  A.,  201. 

Lawrence,  Abbott,  272. 

Lawrence,  G.  P.,  172. 

Le  Conte,  J.,  209. 

Lee,  R.  £.,312,313,315,  325. 

Leonard,  L.  W.,  209. 

Leonowens,  Mrs.  A.  H.,  160. 

Lewes,  Mrs.  (George  Eliot),  99. 

Lincoln,    Abraham,    79,   247,    256, 

.274,  303,  304,  310,  315,  323,  326. 
Linnaeus,  Charles  von,  192. 
Longfellow,   H.  W.,  8,   19,  22,  64, 

66,69,  173,358. 
Lonng,  Anna,  130. 
Lovejoy,  E.  P.,  259. 
Lowell,  J.  R.,  24,  66,  69,  70,  85,  100, 

128,   172,   173,   174,  183,   184,  185, 

186,  330,331- 
Lowell,  Mrs.  J.  R.,  173. 
Lundy,  Benjamin,  249,  250. 
Luther,  Martin,  8,  48,  59,  in,  286. 

Macaulay,  T.  B.,  50. 
Mann,  Horace,  256,  297. 
Manning,  Cardinal,  361. 
Marshall,  John,  291. 
Martineau,  Harriet,  122,  251. 
Marvell,  Andrew,  117. 
Mason  family,  the,  2 16. 
Mason,  Mrs.  M.  J.  C.,  134,  135. 
Maupassant,  Guy  de,  75. 
Meade,  G.  G.,  318. 
Melsheimer,  209. 
Mellen,  G.  W.  F.,  330- 


378 


INDEX 


Methuselah,  178. 
Mill,  J.  S.,  18. 
Miller,  "  Joaquin,"  74. 
Millet,  J.  F.,  162. 
Milton,  John,  8,  in. 
Moltke,  H.  K.  B.,  von,  325. 
Morgan,  Lady  Sidney,  74. 
Morris,  William,  96. 
Morse,  J.  T.,  Jr.,  171,  173. 
Motley,  J.  L.,  258. 
Mott,  James,  339. 

Newby,  Dangerfield,  225. 
Newman,  Edward,  192. 
Noon,  Ora,  339~34i- 
Noyes,  J.  H.,  330. 
Nuttall,  Thomas,  204. 

O'Connell,  Daniel,  261,  271. 

Odger,  James,  364. 

O'Hagan,  Lord,  361. 

Olivier,  G.  A.,  202,  208. 

Osgood,  David,  113. 

Osgood,  J.  R.,  152. 

Ossian,  77. 

Ossoli,   Margaret  (Fuller),    13,    19, 

Si,  no. 

Otis,  H.  G.,  257. 
Otis,  James,  115,  116,  260. 

Paine,  Thomas,  4. 

Palfrey,  J.  G.,  113,  255- 

Palmer,  J.  M.,  316. 

Parker,  Theodore,   34-59;  also  19, 

28,  82,  no,  in,  131,  262,  263,  267, 

271,  283,  286,  288,  289,  296,  298. 
Parkman,  Francis,  76. 
Peabody,  Elizabeth  P.,  26. 
Peck,  W.  D.,  195,  204. 
Pedro,    Dom   (emperor  of    Brazil), 

356. 

Peel,  Sir  Robert,  287. 
Peirce,  Benjamin,  198. 
Penn,  William,  71. 
Pestalozzi,  J.  H.,  27. 
Phelps,  A.  A.,  249. 
Phidias,  5. 

Phillips,  Ann  T.  (Greene),  260. 
Phillips,  George,  257. 
Phillips,  John,  257,  258. 
Phillips,  Jonathan,  259. 
Phillips,  S.  C.,  295. 
Phillips,  Sarah  (Walley),  257. 
Phillips,  Wendell,  257-279;  also  51, 

246,252,295,300,  330,  331. 
Pickering,  Charles,  207. 
Pierce,  Franklin,  103. 
Pillow,  G.  J.,  307- 
Pillsbury,  Parker,  336. 
Pinkney,  E.  C.,  85. 


Plato,  4,  99,  125. 
Plutarch,  289. 
Plympton,  Sylvanus,  196. 
Poe,  E.  A.,  80,  81. 
Pope,  Alexander,  93,  118. 
Pursh,  Frederick,  205. 
Putnam,  Israel,  327. 

Quincy,  Edmund,  262,  271,  272,  275 
Quincy,  Josiah,  256,  257,  260. 
Quincy,  Josiah,  Jr.,  3. 
Quinet,  Edgar,  15. 

Randolph,  John,  290. 
Raphael,  5. 
Reay,  Lord,  356. 
Redpath,  James,  265. 
Reniond,  Charles,  252. 
Richardson,  Samuel,  68,  99. 
Ripley,  George,  no. 
Ripley,  Mrs.,  2. 
Rivarol,  Count  de,  203. 
Robbins,  Chandler,  7. 
Robespierre,  F.  J.  M.  I.,  342. 
Rogers,  N.  P.,  333. 
Roland,  Madame,  120. 
Romilly,  Sir  Samuel,  272. 
Rose,  Sir  John,  363. 
Rosebery,  Lord,  360. 
Rossetti,  D.  G.,  80. 
Ruskin,  John,  77. 
Russell,  Earl,  351. 
Russell,  Lady,  120. 

Say,   Thomas,   204,    205,   207,   209, 

210,  211,  217. 

I  Schelling,  F.  W.  J.,  von,  18. 
I  Schleiermacher,  F.  E.  D.,  79. 
l  Schofield,  J.  McA.,  316. 
I  Scott,  Sir  Walter,  123. 

Scudder,  S.  H.,  215. 

Seward,  W.  H.,  286,  302. 

Shakespeare,  William,  94,  99,  in. 

Shaw,  H.  W.  (Josh  Billings),  74. 

Shaw,  R.  G.,  256. 

Shelley,  P.  B.,  21,  85,  98,  227. 

Sheridan,  P.  H.,  317,  318,  320,  321, 

Sherman,  W.  T.,  310,  312,  316. 

Sidney,  Sir  Philip,  21. 

Sims,  Thomas,  268,  283,  297. 

Smellie,  William,  199. 

Smith,  "Bobus,"  305. 

Smith,  Gerrit,  224. 

Smith,  Sydney,  5,  305. 

Snow,  P.  &  S.,  185. 

Socrates,  16. 

Sparks,  Jared,  193. 

Spence,  William,  206. 

Spencer,  Herbert,  18. 

Spenser,  Edmund,  345. 


INDEX 


379 


Spinoza,  Benedict,  79. 
Spooner,  Lysander,  264. 
Stanley,  Lord  (of  Alderley),  351. 
Stanton,  E.  M.,  302. 
Stearns,  G.  L.,  299. 
Stebbins,  Horatio,  162. 
Stedman,  E.  C.,  76,  84. 
Stedman,  Sam,  188. 
Stevens,  A.  D.,  233. 

Stoll,   202. 

Stone,  Lucy,  158,  336. 

Storer,  D.  H.,  204. 

Storey,  C.  W.,  184. 

Storey,  Moorfield,  184. 

Story,  Joseph,  291. 

Sumner,  Charles,  280-293 ;  also  45, 

256,  267,  273,  295,  303,  357. 
Swan,  Miss,  113. 
Swedenborg,  Emanuel,  57,  128. 
Swinburne,  A.  C.,  95,  125. 

Tacitus,  17. 

Taney,  R.  B.,  224. 

Tappan,  Arthur,  249. 

Tappan,  Lewis,  249,  250. 

Taylor,  Bayard,  76,  90. 

Taylor,  Percy,  342-344. 

Taylor,  Zachary,  306,  307. 

Tennyson,  Alfred,  19. 

Thackeray,  W.  M.,  49. 

Thayer,  David,  263. 

Thayer,  J.  B.,  172. 

Thompson,  Henry,  228. 

Thompson,  Ruth  (Brown),  228. 

Thompsons,  the,  225,  228. 

Thoreau,  H.  D.,  31,  64,  85,  94,  100, 

301. 

Thucydicles,  4. 

Ticknor,  George,  116,  271,  272,  357, 
Toby,  Uncle,  310. 
Tocqueville,  A.  C.  H.  C.  de,  268. 
Towne,  J.  H.,  250. 
Trowbridge,  Edmund,  189. 
Tuckerman,  Edward,  192. 
Tupper,  M.  F.,  77. 
Turner,  Nat,  121. 
Tyndall,  John,  15,  357. 
Tyrtaeus,  65. 


Van  Dyck,  Sir  Anthony,  86. 

Vergniaud,  P.  V.,  342. 

Victoria,  Queen,  367-372. 

Visit  to  John  Brown's  Household  in 

1859,  219-243. 
Voet,  P.  E.,  208. 

Walker,  Alexander,  121. 

Walpole,  Horace,  4. 

Ward,  C.  J.,  211. 

Ward,  W.  H.,  86,  90,  91,  92,  100. 

Ware,  Charles,  176. 

Ware,  Henry,  Jr.,  6,  21. 

Warren,  G.  K.,  146,  317-322. 

Washington,  George,  97,  193,  252. 

Webster,  Mrs.  Augusta,  372. 

Webster,  Daniel,  43,   57,  247,  256, 
267,  268. 

Weiss,  John,  288. 

Wellington,      Arthur      Wellesley, 
Duke  of,  233,  305,  325. 

Wesley,  John,  252. 

Westermann,  210. 

Westwood,  J.  O.,  202. 

Wheelock,  Eleazar,  188. 
i  Whipple,  E.  P.,  106. 
1  Whitefield,  George,  115. 

Whitman,    Walt,    72-84;     also    97, 
98. 

Whittier,   J.    G.,    60-71;    also    76, 

248. 

I  Wilberforce,  William,  279,  302. 
j  Wilson,  Henry,  256,  302. 
j  Wines,  E.  C.,  360. 
j  Winthrop,  James,  189. 
j  Winthrop,  R.  C.,  272,  296. 
i  Wise,  H.  A.,  133,  134. 
'  Woodbury,  J.  T.,  250. 

Woodrow,  James,  87. 

Woodward,  Rufus,  213. 

Woolsey,  Sarah  C.,  153. 

Wordsworth,  William,  8,  19,  39. 

Wright,  Elizur,  250. 

Wright,    Frances,  121. 

Wright,  H.  C.,  332,  336. 

Wright,  H.  G.,  27. 

Xenophon,  4. 


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